Right off the bat, I knew I wanted to make, but I didn’t know what I wanted to make. I decided to go to the University of Kansas in Lawrence. I hung out with my football buddies and the art kids who dyed their hair pink. This is strange, but I lived a double life in high school I was captain of the football team and the art kid. Then I realized how much I like diversity and I thought I would miss that going somewhere that only focused on art. I left high school thinking I was going to go the art school route because I had scholarships to various art institutions. I thought, “Illustration and design-this is where dreams come true.” I will make things and you will give me things?” They gave me season tickets they had a football player come to my school in a Ferrari to drive me around they had a big assembly and then, a fifth grade girl asked me out.
As a third grader, I was like, “Wait a second. I won a contest to draw the season tickets for the Kansas City Chiefs. When I was in third grade, I had my first real experience with illustration and commerce. So, did you go straight to college after high school already knowing your path or did you have any “aha” moments along the way? It’s okay to think differently it’s ok to be an artist it’s ok to be an innovator. Gordon inspired me to believe that you don’t need permission to be creative. We get older and start worrying about what we’re making, if it’s successful, and how it compares to what others are doing. He would ask students in each grade, “Who in here is an artist?” As he moved up grade levels, he would see less and less arms raise in response to his question until he got to middle school and only two hands would go up. Gordon was a great speaker and he would go to schools and present to each individual grade. One of my favorite things that Gordon always said was, “Everyone has a masterpiece within them.” It’s about the benefits of creativity in corporate America. Gordon would go on to write a book called Orbiting the Giant Hairball and I highly recommend it to everyone. It was brilliant and I have it hanging in my office still.Īnother person I met was Gordon MacKenzie, one of my dad’s best friends. Happy 9th birthday!” with a dog peeing on Alfred’s leg. I’ll never forget this for my ninth birthday, Paul sent me a drawing of Alfred E. He was also one of the lead character designer for the abominable snowman from those claymation Christmas movies we watched as kids. One person was Paul Coker, who was one of the original illustrators for Mad Magazine. I got to meet all kinds of people growing up there. But outside of Pixar maybe, there’s nowhere that has this much creativity in one location.
A lot of us think of Hallmark Cards as a place where fluffy bunnies and sentimental flower cards are created-there’s some truth to that. The fact that I grew up in the hallways of Hallmark Cards really shaped my voice as a designer. He really set a tone for me as an illustrator and artist. Even to this day, I run sketches by him all the time because he’s the most amazing draftsman and idea man I’ve ever met. Some sons and fathers work on cars and some do illustrations together, which is what me and my dad did. As a teenager, I rebelled and thought I wanted to be a painter for a while, but then I realized how important illustration and design were to me, especially growing up with my dad.
He started as an illustrator and writer and is now Creative Director for Hallmark International.įrom an early age, I had a good idea and understanding of what illustration and design were and how they were important to us. My father is an illustrator and has worked for Hallmark Cards for almost 40 years. She dyes her own wool and hooks these beautiful rugs. When I went to a friend’s house who had a parent who was an accountant, I thought, “What the heck? You guys don’t sit around at night making things?” It was so surreal. I grew up making and I never knew any different. I was an only child, or a lonely child as I thought it was. I was really fortunate to grow up in a household with parents who were both artists. Describe your path to becoming an illustrator and designer.
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