While I was working at Gardner Graphics (1996-2001) I was in the position of designer. I had just come back to Buffalo from Nutmeg Mills in Tampa Florida (1995-1996) where I had worked my way into special events graphics for the NFL, NBA, and NCAA. At Nutmeg I was an illustrator first, designer second. I learned almost all I knew about design and computer graphics from the team there, especially Rob Lee who would go on to be art director at Reebok and who would later help define my vector style. But the line between illustrator and designer is as fuzzy as illustrator and fine artist and by the time I got to Gardners, I was designated designer. I guess it depends on who your talking to and what your chief responsibilities are. Either way, its good to be able to do both. Toward the end of Gardner Graphics, before it merged fully with the New Buffalo Shirt Factory, we were submitting a lot of graphics to Disney. I came up with a couple lines that we got through. I don't remember what they decided to call the first one but we called it "the Grump line" because it was one of the only lines where the Grumpy version outsold the Mickey version (not shown).
The other one I think we called x-games where I thought it would be great to see the characters out of their usual garb.
I also did one where the heads were windows. All the lines went at least 4 characters deep.
Iv done a lot of theme park and entertainment graphics. With so many concepts submitted, very few get printed. Most of the cool ones get scrapped. That's a shared opinion around the campfire.
