The short answer to the question of what I do goes something like this: I am part Graphic Designer and part Visiting Assistant Professor of Typography and Visual Communication Design. That's certainly not the whole story, but that's what I'm known for. Well, that and my somewhat useful ability to identify nearly any typeface without consulting a specimen book and my rudimentary skills on the French Horn.

When I tell people that I'm a designer, and that I teach Typography and Visual Communication Design courses, they generally get a blank look on their face. Most people have come to think of designers as people who make logos and Web sites. Typography is something most people have never heard of, though we all partake in it on a daily basis. And Visual Communication Design? forget about it—they have no idea what I'm talking about. I'm not alone in this dilemma, however, as any designer will gladly tell you.


Visual Communication has undergone a wonderful change in recent years. Designers now may be just as likely to shape public policy or help people find their way through a built environment as they would be to design Web sites. Designers are first and foremost problem solvers. Those problems can be as simple as designing a new logo, or as complex as determining where and how citizens vote in order to make elections as fair and transparent as possible. Form-making is often part of the process, but is rarely the only part. Objects or artifacts created by a designer are (ideally) the result of an iterative process that involves research, prototyping and user testing.

Typography is quite literally the study and practice of making language visible. Typography can be defined as the art—though some might argue that it's more accurately the science—of setting individual letters in strings to form words, sentences and paragraphs. Every sign, banner, billboard, eye chart, book, magazine, brochure, Web site, and movie title sequence has type that was (again, ideally) carefully chosen to achieve a specific effect.

The tools professional designers use are becoming more widely available, and it is my hope, as the general public begins to use these tools, that the public will also seek to understand and implement the principles of good design and typography. Along with links to the places where I have worked, I have also included many helpful links on this page to sites that give a broader audience a better understanding of Typography and Visual Communication design.