This is a photo of me at Holden Beach, North Carolina. While I was not born there, I lived in North Carolina twice for a total of about 8 years. It was not unusual for our family to rent a beach house for two or three weeks and gather with other extended family members. I used to fish a lot and we often ate spot and flounder. I also collected many shells. No doubt my mom enjoyed the stench of rotting flesh as the ants cleaned them in the shimmering sunlit afternoons. When I showed her this site she couldn't get past this picture.

The horizontal bar design elements are basically my version of straplines turned horizontally. I liked the idea of taking a functional design attribute used to  identify different sections of a publication and use it as a graphic element.

I recall reading an interview in which the singer said his favorite channel was the Weather Channel because he liked watching things move in boxes. Who knows if he was joking or not but, aesthetically, I knew what he meant and I liked it. Plus I needed an excuse to to make a semi-transparent box revealing burl underneath.

I often use a background texture using photos of burl wood. I began doing this when I was an illustrator for a newspaper. It was a convenient way to  add depth and character to art while on deadline. I quickly started using it for other projects and now I am also having a synth housing designed with this wood, so it has become something of a trademark of mine. Not to say I would name my child Burl, but it's every bit as cool as "Burt", wouldn't you agree?