Moniker

When did you fall in love with design and how did you get started?

My uncle was a graphic designer in the 70’s so when my parents recognized I had some art ability my mother kinda nudged me in that direction. Mostly because she knew you could make a career out of art if you went the graphic design route, as opposed to the starving artist route. So from a fairly early age I was aware, to some extent, of what design was and enjoyed creating artwork for mine and my friends bands and anyone else I could get a project from. In highschool I got a job at a local print shop in my hometown and started to learn the client and operations side of a design related business.

Where did you study and what were some of your first jobs?

I studied at a private school in west Texas. My first job out of school was at a small studio in Dallas, called Range. We did a lot of logos and a wide variety of projects with regional and national brands. It was a small team but we got to work on fairly large projects which I enjoyed and informed what I wanted to do on my own, eventually. After a couple years at Range I took a position at Fossil, also based in Dallas. The team I was on created most of the graphics and illustration for the Fossil brand and this is where I really learned the graphic side of graphic design. Our creative director would lead short internal courses teaching us different techniques such as watercolor and gouache, so I learned a lot about how to use those techniques within the context of design.

Give us the elevator pitch on what you do.

I run a design studio in San Francisco called Moniker. Nate and I handle the creative direction and design for the studio and Lindsey handles business and operations. We work for a wide range of clients from small startups and mom and pops to global corporations. Our focus is on visual identity systems but we like to work on any project that sounds interesting and allows us to do something new.

Any passion projects you would like to share?

I’ve been collecting graphic design related posters, books and ephemera for a while and have been focusing more on Japanese design pieces over the last few years. We’ve been working on putting together an archive and shop to share the collection and hope to launch sometime in 2017.