Something of a story…

Like many others, my story began with a dream - only this dream had nothing to do with design, graphics, users, any of that. My dream was to be a rockstar (fast forward - mission mostly accomplished).

I started to express an interest in drumming when I was about 8 years old, though it was not quite a profound realization yet. My thighs became the kick and snare drums to the beats I heard in music. Grunge, rock and alternative were immediately my taste thanks to Green Day, Silverchair, Foo Fighters and Bush. There’s more to this part of the story but I will continue with the relevant bits.

My best friend in 7th grade had a massive drum kit in his bonus room and one sleepover his dad told me to sit behind the kit and play something. His dad said I had natural rhythm so naturally the time had come to ask for a kit of my own for my birthday. Oh - I had a huge crush on my best friend’s sister. Not necessary information.

Parents obliged. Drum kit acquired. Best friend’s sister didn’t care. Womp.

I first knew who I wanted to become the moment I setup the kit for the very first time. It’s a visceral feeling to realize that you have passion.

What does this have to do with design?

Ok let’s skip through my awkward teen years, first band, girl jeans and studded belts and get straight to my post-high school band. Victory At Last (that was the name of the band, and pun intended).

Around the end of high school I had been dabbling a bit in Photoshop on the school computers but nothing more than tossing some default embossing on some letters. But the key here was that I was clued into Photoshop and that I could make cool stuff with it. I even attempted some sort of clothing line called “dressedforCHAOS” (LOL) where I would just download wingding-esque fonts and cobble them together and call it a shirt design. Sold like 50 shirts though, so that was sick.

I decided at the end of high school that I was not interested in pursuing any secondary schooling and that I wanted to pursue music. I had already been dreaming for years about living on a tour bus and playing drums for the world, so why put that on hold for some books and education? My parents are super lovely and supportive so they allowed me to dip into a college fund to buy a nice MacBook Pro because I had expressed an interest in design via the Photoshop mention earlier.

So, recap: drums, design. Ok we’re caught up.

In comes MySpace (thanks, Tom)

My band after high school, Victory At Last, was an alternative rock band flavored similar to Coheed and Cambria meets Saosin. We were quite active in the Nashville rock scene (oh yeah, I forgot to mention I lived outside of Nashville and 100% of this story so far took place there) and we started to play regional shows outside of the state thanks to the power of MySpace messages.

I started to take notice that signed bands had really cool looking pages and it wasn’t before long that I figured out how necessary it would be for VAL to make an impression on new listeners and labels. After all, social media was not what it was today. I quickly learned that I could hijack the HTML and CSS on pages to customize our page. Because of this little trick, I was able to design a page in Photoshop, chop it up using slices, and build out a page with HTML and CSS that I stole from someone else.

Within a matter of days of launching our fresh new MySpace page, I was getting messages on the band account asking who did our page and how much we paid. This was where it really started to get fun, and the beginning of my design career. But remember - this was 2008-2009ish. We had barely even touched the surface (pun intended) on mobile phones, responsive web design, etc.

Because of how much fun I was having, this turned into a legitimate business for about 2 years. My design company was called This Is Alchemy (RIP). I solely designed MySpace pages for $400-$500 a pop and was churning out 2 a week on average. I was 21 years old and had my first salary of about $45,000/year. This was all the validation I needed to realize that not only could I play drums but also make money (albeit the money didn’t come from drumming).

As I plowed ahead through the ebbs and flows of technology, I was able to grow and evolve with every turn of the market. As websites needed to adapt, so did I. As websites turned into mobile apps, I was there - raring to go. There’s so much more to this story that I would love to bore you with but I will fast forward now to the ending.

Design and music have led me to where I am today and I couldn’t be more grateful for the overlap in passions. If it weren’t for music and design, I wouldn’t have the beautiful family and life I have today.