James Williams
Designer
I design things, photograph things, occasionally print or paint things. Though my focus is producing books and catalogs for artists, galleries, and museums, I am experienced in branding and marketing design and offer a comprehensive suite of design services.
As a child I could be found drawing or playing with Legos. A bright kid, I was tracked into advanced math and science classes in middle school, coinciding with my last art class for some time. But, in my last semester of high school I took a photography class to fill an unexpected gap in my schedule and proved to have a natural aptitude for composition.
I would eventually find myself a rather disgruntled pre-engineering major. A deep inspection of the course handbook returned several classes offered in photography, some of which were in the visual communications curriculum. Reading the descriptions of these classes brought back memories of my childhood when I was fascinated by all things visual, whether the morning’s cereal box and all those words or doodling logos for imaginary companies.
More deeply it reminded me of a time sitting in the fourth grade after completing a lesson. In our free time a classmate was writing. Whatever she was writing, I was fascinated by the long page of letters combining to create words, forming sentences that would become paragraphs. I wanted to fill a page with the wonderful signs and symbols, but I sat there wondering whatever would I write?
Finding the 40th anniversary edition of Communication Arts in the university bookstore sealed my fate. It provided examples of the work produced from classes I read about in the course handbook. Work that took the words of others and gave form to them, adding context and illuminating them with illustrations or photography. I didn’t have to write the words to fill a page with meaning; rather I could use my skills and insight to support and enhance the words of others. By the next semester I was a graphic design major.
Since that fateful moment in the university bookstore, I’ve enjoyed illuminating the words of others for more than twenty years, and look forward to providing the same for you.
