I’ve been working in 3D off and on for a long time starting with primitive software programs in college and later in my experimental Flash projects. I stumbled on incorporating 3D in graphic design projects sometime around the turn of the millennium and used it for a good while specifically on extruded 3D type. It was a very Y2K look. I put it aside to focus on motion work and client projects. I had played around with Cinema 4D and found it really rewarding but it was quite slow on my Mac and I was not willing to move to a PC.
With the release of Macs with Apple Silicon, along with the power of Redshift, Cinema 4D is a lot more speedy. The tools available through GreyscaleGorilla and the generous number of YouTube videos and other tutorials have made Cinema 4D far more usable for designers like myself. The 3D explorations I’ve made have been primarily used as artwork for articles I’ve written. AI tools along with Blender have opened up 3D to many more people and I'm excited to push 3D further. It’s a, at times tedious, creative tool with endless possibilities and this is what I enjoy most about it.
Kingston Standard is a brewery and public house in Kingston, New York brewing fresh, simple, small-batch beers that pay homage to Kingston’s singular culture and history. Brewer and partner Tait Simpson and I have have worked over the last several years to bring every aspect of Kingston Standard to life. This has encompassed all of the logistics around real estate, city approvals, licensing, trademarking, brand development, building renovation, and build out to developing Kingston Standard’s recipes, beers, and food menu. It has been an undertaking with many moving parts and we are proud to have created a place is all about community.
The brand and vibe of Kingston Standard is centered on simplicity, ease, and an attention to detail. I developed the brand to harken back to some of Kingston’s past while remaining very much grounded in today. In a world of overly complex beers with equally complex visuals, the goal of Kingston Standard is to be timeless, considered and of the highest quality. In 2024 Kingston Standard’s barrel aged sour “Love is Overtaking Me” received gold In the sour category at the New York State Craft Beer Competition and also received the 2024 Governor’s Excelsior Craft Beer Cup for the best beer in New York State.
KampeCo was born out of my interest in making visual expressions based on our shared stories from folklore and history. Back in 2018 I started by researching the history of American canoe building in the late 19th century and then evolved into symbology from the Adirondacks and the American West. I’m a history buff and really like reading about the characters from this time. Edwin Tappan Adney being my all time favorite figure from this era. In 2020 I read the book The Three-Cornered War by Megan Kate Nelson and I started to make compositional illustrations that evoke small encapsulated narratives.
Over time my illustrations became more abstracted and I started to explore visual ideas from 19th Century magical orders and secret societies. These compositions were fun to do but it became hard to make all the small pieces to form a final composition. Since mid-2022 I have been focusing more on singular portraits that include flames emanating from floating heads. I find these newer pieces to be more singular and I often complete them by making actual paintings in gouache. I plan to continue to push these further into new realms.
Volumeone was started as a personal web project. After working for two years, I wanted to find a way to recapture some of the experimental energy I had cultivated in graduate school. Volumeone is the result of this desire and reflects the idea of a book series or journal. From the Spring of 1997 to 2009 I published 30 different “seasons” that consisted of a selection of personal creative work, projects and formal experiments. The Seasons gave me a framework to publish regularly and was instrumental in helping get my name and work out into the design world.
Early projects used the limited capabilities of the web and consisted of animated gifs and primitive Javascript pop-up windows. Over time I transitioned into using Flash exclusively which allowed me to ride a new wave of experimental web design in the late 90’s and early 2000’s. between 1999 and 2003 my Volumeone work gained a great deal of attention. I had the fortune of speaking all over the world and sharing my views on graphic design, DIY ethics, self publishing, and the value of pushing what the web could do.