My Professional Experience (So Far!) A Love Story
I got my first job in the art department of our local newspaper (because I had good handwriting!) Even though technology has changed so much since then, I learned things there I still use every day in my design work — composition, rule of thirds, typography, and always, always start with a grid!
There was only one TV station in my little home town and one graphic designer employed there. I could not believe my luck when I got that job — I loved it even more than the newspaper! I created art boards for broadcast commercials on mat board with transfer lettering and clip art or hand illustrations. I shot slides of my artwork and hand-developed the film for broadcast, and did courtroom sketching for the news department.
KPLC-TV was an NBC affiliate, so this was my first experience working with a “Style Bible”, with its corporate colors, strict logo usage regulations and official typefaces — the number 7 in Helvetica Medium is still burned into my eyeballs!
In Lafayette, there were 3 TV stations and 5 TV graphic designers! I worked there for an independent station that was just going on-air, so I got the opportunity to design the station logo and create the branding guidelines. This spunky little low-budget outfit was so understaffed, I got to do a little of everything: design, photography, and set design, construction, and painting, which was so much fun, it was not even like work!
My previous television experience got me my all-time favorite job in the art department of KLRU-TV, the Austin PBS station. The woman who hired me said “If you think this is a rare job to find, try finding someone who actually has experience doing it!” Working with the Austin City Limits team remains a career highlight, AND I got to hear a lot of good music!
I’ll fast forward through the next 17 years of being an in-house graphic designer for a manufacturer, except to say that learning design software on their dime and time gave me valuable take-away skills! I specialized in product photography and design for print reproduction; creating brochures, B2B and consumer ads, and lots and lots of direct mail campaigns, giving me a ton of experience working with 4-color offset printing.
Today, I am the sole proprietor of a freelance design company, Gunn Graphics. I still specialize in designing for print, as well as online artwork for client websites and social media promotions for my retail products.
When my freelance work is done, I create labors of love. Recently, much of my personal work has focused on themes of social justice, like “Look What Happens When you Don’t Vote”, “Change the World” and my most popular design, “Love Is Greater Than Hate”.
I am currently accepting freelance jobs in illustration and print design, especially event posters, brochures, and book cover design. And if you'd like an upraised fist in your project, so much the better!
I have several designs available for licensing that you can print and distribute, such as t-shirts, framed wall art, tote bags, mugs, planners, sketchbooks, etc.