creative director. artist. musician.

What makes a good creative director? Is it a solid liberal arts education that contextualizes language and intent through design? Yes, but that’s not all of it. It’s also lived interactions—life beyond theoretical exercises. For me it was peppering my college experience with time spent as a junior mechanic, learning to weld and do brake jobs and tune ups in a muffler shop. As a home appliance delivery person, shuttling new refrigerators in and removing the old. As a cook and bartender in a rowdy campus pub. As the manager of a university research phone bank. The list of jobs held, and the knowledge gleaned from those experiences, was just as heady as the Bauhaus-driven curriculum of my design degree.

While I no longer muscle large appliances into folks’ homes, I still seek out as many experiences as I possibly can: writer, director, designer, trombonist, vocalist, synth-smearer, agitator, therapist and dad. All of this adds up to identifying as a creative director. On the nose of a week that can mean pitch writing or proposal creation. The squishy midsection? Engaging a heap of designers, developers, editors or copywriters. And the tail could be directing a video or a photoshoot or brainstorming a new logo or wine label. Or discussing the merits of analog tape delay with some erstwhile musicians or working on the next great American album—okay that one’s a stretch—hopefully over cold beers. And if you got this far, I owe you a beverage.

Clients have included: Authentique Wine Cellars, Autodesk, Barracuda, ConMet, Dell Technologies, DeMarini Sports, Doernbecher, Ellucian, Food Chain Films, Hilton, Hood River Distillers, HP, Intel, Keeler Estate Winery, Lenovo, Macromedia, Microsoft, Nike, Oddball Shoe Co., Oregon Democratic Party, Portland Brewing, Pyramid Brewing, Redhook, Salomon, Siemens, Solstice, SP Provisions, Suunto, Technology Association of Oregon, W+K, Wilson Sports, ZDNet.