Why I Still Love Graphic Design

Geo Modernism uses simple geometry, bold composition, and restrained color to turn structure into visual energy.

Design teaches you how to see.

My influences come from all over graphic design—modernism, editorial design, advertising, typography, collage, posters and books.

I can still look at the work of Paul Rand, Saul Bass or Bradbury Thompson and find something to study.

Not because I want to reproduce their work.

Because great design makes you ask questions.

Why does that composition work? Why does that type feel inevitable? Why did someone remove something instead of adding something?

I’ve been a graphic designer for a long time, and I still get excited when a few shapes, a typeface, an image, and some empty space suddenly begin to work together.

That may be the part of design I’ve always loved most: the moment when separate pieces stop being separate pieces and become an idea.

My influences come from all over the history of graphic design — modernism, editorial design, advertising, typography, collage, posters, books, and designers who understood that communication could also be beautiful.

I can look at the work of someone like Paul Rand, Saul Bass, Bradbury Thompson, or the designers of the Bauhaus and still find something to study. Not because I want to reproduce their work, but because great design teaches you how to see.

Why did that composition work?Why does that type feel inevitable?Why did someone remove something instead of adding something?

Those questions never really get old.

Ignition Go has given me a new place to explore them. Thought Systems, Mr. Intention, the books, the posters, the experiments — they’re all connected to the same thing that made me want to be a designer in the first place:

Taking an idea and giving it form.

I’m still doing that. And I’m still learning how.