I've worked on many software diagrams for companies such as VMware and Silicon Graphics. Creating graphics to visually explain ideas can be a wonderful challenge.
My Hardware Technical Illustration stems from my job at Silicon Graphics. I took photographs in the lab of various racks and components, watching engineers remove and replace things like fans, cards, and memory so that I could accurately show a user how to do the same things in the User's Guides we created. When the hardware was not available, I would work with CAD drawings and try to recreate the images as best as I could.
Part of my job at VMware was to make new icons and imagery to refresh the documentation. I based the new images on the Marketing Branding guide, but made the illustrations more scalable in size for documents and so that they would save to a variety of formats.
While most of my jobs have been primarily as a Technical Illustrator, I have also done my share of Graphic Design. I have created logos, done page layouts for print and web, and have been to a few print press checks to ensure the prints were color accurate.
Regional logo for a new soccer division in Downtown San Jose, designed 2015.
Using the AYSO national flyer, I designed something a bit similar for the Downtown San Jose region. The major difference was that the school districts in San Jose require the flyer to be in both English and Spanish. Because the region is new and they don't want to pay for a double sided print, we opted for essentially a half page flyer with translation at the bottom.
This was designed to pass out at Farmers' Markets in the region as a way to get the word out about the new soccer division in San Jose.
I redesigned a 24 page document to be used in an Emergency Room. My job was to make the instructions clear and concise, utilizing images to go with each of the steps. The document was done in InDesign.
While contracting at VMware, I was asked to help design a new Documentation Portal. I had about 5 pages to mock up and had coded 3 of them in HTML and CSS before my contract was up.
This was designed to be a tri-fold poster that would be shipped with the product. This image is the front page of the poster.
While I was an intern at Silicon Graphics in 2000, a few engineers came up with an idea to create some fun posters to brighten up employee offices and were full of company in-jokes. They wanted hand drawn posters that were fun and more like cartoons. We printed the posters and signed them as you would for a fine art print run.
Since my first photography class in high school, I've been drawn to taking pictures. Aside from taking photos on vacations and of my family, I've also taken some photo classes for fun and to have a darkroom to play in. Some of my favorite photos were from the experimental photo processes I learned in those classes.
I created this in an experimental photography class in 2005 or 2006. Learning this process and seeing the imperfect beauty in the images that result was quite fun and sometimes frustrating since it can be hard to replicate.
This anthotype was made by blending rose petals, geranium petals and rubbing alcohol, painting the liquid onto paper, and exposing to the sun under positive film for three weeks. This image is no longer there after a few years of hiding from the light. It's a beautiful but temporary process.
This is a Van Dyke print from 2006. The original negative was color, which I made into a 5" by 7" positive and then an 11" by 14" negative. This has to be one of my favorite experimental photo processes. It is time consuming to make the negatives, but the finished images on art paper are really beautiful.
I majored in Fine Arts in college, focusing on working in oil on wood panels that I created. I kept on painting after graduation while working as a technical illustrator during the day. I enjoyed showing in local galleries and selling my work. I paused for a while to renovate my house to create a studio and to have my two kids.
Some things I've created are kind of just playing around and seeing what happens. Whether that's creating a collage, or making decorations for a birthday party, I think there should be times where art is just fun.
This drawing is 5" by 7" and was included in the Pop-X art installation envisioned by Joe Levickas in Ann Arbor in 2015. It was a collaboration of artists who submitted images as if we were all participating in a dinner party. It was a nice change to go back to my first love of drawing on paper.
I created this, strangely, for a photo class. I layered paper and magazine images, paint, and then charcoal over the top.
My daughter decided for her 5th birthday that she wanted a Mr. Men birthday party. Since that isn't the most popular kids theme around, I designed her birthday decorations myself. If I could come up with a dream job, that might be close. Making funny cartoon images for the party was tremendously fun.