Why this project you may ask? Well, I wanted to feature a few designers that I follow on Twitter, receive information from, you know...all that good stuff. This is just a sliver of the designers that I follow. There are hundreds of graphic designers Tweetin' daily, so, if you care to join our crowd, grab yourself a Twitter account and hop on over to Just Tweet It.
So...as you probably learned already, my name is Mitch Smith and I created this site as part of an interface design class. This project was dreamed up while sitting in class one day thinking of what subject matter to build upon. My first thoughts were to build a site featuring a few of the "classics" found in literature. Once I began searching for material to use, I realized how boring it would be to spend the next month and a half designing a site on books that I have not read (yet).
I was in the computer lab at school searching online for books to feature while also Tweeting when the idea struck. This is the birth of a random thought one fine day in early September.
A bit more about myself...I am finishing up my final year of schooling at Utah State University in Logan, Utah. I started school back in fall of 2005 studying landscape architecture and environmental planning. I finished the school year that spring and decided then that landscape architecture, which had been an interest of mine, was not what I wanted to be doing the rest of my adult life. The following fall I registered for a handfull of art classes with the intent to go graduate with a BFA, emphasis in graphic design. For as long as I can remember, I have been interested in art. I enjoyed the design aspects of the landscape architecture classes I took, but the memorizing codes, plant species, etc. was not an enjoyable task. The art classes I took offered a lot more freedom in creativity. They felt more like the stuff I had grown up doing and creating.
Throughout high school I was interested in video editing, 3D animation, and other various computer related things. It only seemed natural to switch and persue a career more related to what I enjoyed and loved. I still do small video editing projects today, but mostly just as a hobby. The job I currently hold allows me to utilize the skills I learned with the 3D animation. I use a CAD/CAM program to design jewelry for Utah's oldest jewelry store. It's not something I enjoy enough to do it daily for the next few decades, at least not like I enjoy using Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, etc.
I think part of my love for design comes from my family background. As a child I would often spend the hours during the day in my grandfather's print shop. I vaguely remember watching the Linotype machine run. It was great. This past summer I spent some time in Switzerland on a study abroad trip with the school. While there we visited a papermill in Basel where they were operating a Linotype. It brought back many memories of my childhood. That is probably one of the many reasons why I felt so at home while in Switzerland.
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