So as mentioned in a previous post, I recently finished up a summer-long internship at Design Concepts. My the style of work I was required to do there was strictly corporate. Which, if you’ve seen my body of work pre-summer, is not necessarily my weapon of choice. Before hand I really focused on things with a lot of texture, paint splatters etc, and I did it well. My four student ADDY awards are testament to that. But after concluding my internship, and being exposed to this new style, I can’t help but find myself favoring it over my old style. Now all of the sudden I’m favoring clean, simple, yet still “well designed” designs. But I fear I may be neglecting the old style. What I really want to do is find a happy medium between the two. Looking at designers like Jeff Finley and Brian Hoff is something I really would like to shoot for.

One of my first design loves was the photomanipulation. Spending hours hunting for the right photos with the right lighting, putting them all together in Photoshop in a compelling and artistic way was amazing. When I first got to college, that was the only kind of design I wanted to do, really. It stayed that way for quite some time, too. But now, I am more excited about my typeface than the images. Some designers say that’s a good thing, other not. I can’t really decide which side of the fence I’m on. Clearly type and negative space are in my opinion some of, if not the most design elements you can have in any given design. But I really feel that texture (used tastefully) can really add additional character to those two already extremely powerful elements.

So I find myself in quite a predicament. I’ve just been turned loose, and really have the time to dig deep and find myself (in a designer-type-sense). I have the chance to start a new designer chapter, but I’m torn as to which direction the narrative will lead. I’m not sure, but as my good friend and mentor Michael Freiman told me, “It’s an exciting place to be in”.