Qualifications
I hold a Bachelor
of Fine Arts from Southwest
Texas State University, have been in the design business since
1990 working at design agencies and photography
studios, either full-time or freelance, and started
my own design studio in 2003.
I have extensive experience in design and production using
Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Dreamweaver and Flash.
I admin two servers, one is a Linux Server and the other
a Windows Server. I host many of my clients websites.
I am constantly learning about new technologies, learning
ways to optimize websites and I put as much good design in
front of my eyes as I can.
Here's my resume in
case you wanted to check it out.
Official Stuff About Me
My first experience doing graphics was for the High
School Yearbook. I used Pagemaker and a Black and White Mac Classic.
My first real graphics job was during
College at a Design
Studio inside a Kinko's. Mostly just greek event flyers,
graduation announcements and the occasional "real" design
for a poster or tri-fold.
My College classes basically taught me to be clever, but
since they got their first computers during my 3rd semester,
they didn't really have a curriculum built around the machines,
so I sat and taught myself Illustrator, Photoshop and Quark,
building fake newsletters and posters.
Right after I graduated, I got a call from a friend who
was still in school about a potential employer. It was a
photography studio with one of the first digital cameras
in Texas. I started work that day. They taught me how to
do a clipping path and a drop shadow, and I was off and running.
Six years later, I took a management
position at a sister
photography studio on the 3M campus in Austin. This is
about the time I started building websites for the band
I was in at the time using Pagemill and FrontPage.
About
a year later, advertising assets were frozen at 3M, but
I had just gotten an offer from an old friend in San
Antonio who needed a Senior Designer for
a Web Development Company.
I moved to San Antonio and worked building
websites until
the company had to lay most of us off because of restructuring.
I had started freelancing at home and on the weekends whenever
the opportunity arose, and when I got layed off, I saw an
opportunity to start my own business.
But I was offered a job at a design
agency. It was a good
job, and it was fun, but they ran out of work for me. After
I left there is when I got my DBA and started pounding the
pavement.
I was hired on a contract basis by a publishing
company for a few months, and
then later by a major
grocery store in Texas to help
with their website. This put money in the bank and educated
me more than I could have ever paid for.
Now I'm in College
Station, Texas doing websites, logos,
print, and game development for companies not only in Texas,
but across the nation. Still haven't jumped the pond. Yet.
I can't get a decent line-of-site wireless signal out in the
country, so I'm on Satellite Broadband with Wildblue.net. Now
if someone can finally invent a portable satellite broadband
device.
I really love doing what I do. Now if I can just figure
out a fun way to do sales.
Fun Stuff About Me
I've been an artist ever since I can remember, always
drawing.
I remember winning a poster contest for a dental office
in Spain back in 1980, where the bull was a molar and the
bullfighter had a cleaning instrument. And earlier, I remember
winning a cap and belt buckle for a drawing I did for the
Big Red Soda Company. I even won something for a "Say No
To Drugs" cartoon I did in High School.
I'd say my biggest influence growing up was Sergio
Aragonez with his "marginal" cartoons in Mad Magazine. I still fill
sketchbooks with strange cartoons without words. Funny how
things stick with you. I've made some of my cartoons into wallpapers.
I own a metal Sesame Street, Hot
Wheels and Davey and Goliath lunchbox,
drink "venti,
decaf, iced mocha, light ice, no whip ",
my favorite children's
book illustrators are J.Otto
Siebold, Jane
Simmons, and Holly
Hobbie. I like watching Michel
Gondry's work.
My wife and I have 4
children, we have
an acre of land in
College Station, Texas (my backyard is
a race track for my off-road go-cart, well, and a bunch of
weeds), we garden using the Lasagna
Gardening method, I'm
building a treehouse in our backyard, it
has two sections with a bridge between them, and one has
two stories. I play
guitar and piano. I've made a couple of
PVC didgeridoos and
a couple of cajon box
drums. I like exotic
musical instruments. And I want one of these.
Take a look at the wallpapers section.
There you'll find a bit more about what makes my eyes happy,
and what my illustration style is these days.
I'm writing a couple blogs,
one of which is Stories
from Papi, a collection of stories I tell
my kids, and Ideas
From Jorge, which is full of webmaster
tips and reviews
and stuff.
Thanks for reading.
|