Skills & Proficiencies
My work bridges digital and physical design, strategy, identity, and concept development encouraging business growth. Executive & board leadership, entrepreneurship, public speaking, creative direction, brand strategy, brand workshops, experience design, non-profit work, startups, UX, UI, web/mobile, packaging, product, environmental design, concept art and storyboarding, graphic design, fine art, and illustration.
Interests, Volunteer, Investment
I'm lucky to be able to incorporate many of my outside interests into my work, including Illustration, adventuring/travel, fine art, engaging kids & families, non-profits and other civic-minded work. I've proudly invested in Stag Provisions, Fleet Coffee, Blue Avocado, and Earthly. Of course I've created and invested in myself: Verde Camp, Dipity, Bear James, Thinga, Givoo, and Brodeo.
Quick Timeline
Graduated The University of Texas in Austin, and began designing posters and other marketing material at the Performing Arts Center. A year later I started my own illustration and design. During this time, I did some freelance for Virtual Studios which later became Frog Austin. Some of the work I did was drawing icons for a small, no-name company in Sunnyvale, California called Yahoo!
About that same time, I got job offer in the Bay area to do concept art and storyboarding for a small tech company called Simply. I also dressed up in a ping-pong ball suit and became a 3D animated taxi driver in a funky place called Internet the City. After a few months at the end of 1996, I realized that working at Yahoo! was probably the better plan. I worked on so many projects at Yahoo!, it's hard to name them all, but a few of the most notable ones were Yahoo! Kids, Music, Shopping, Autos, Sports, Games, Weather, and a TON of brand and marketing projects. Yahoo's where I got my early UI and UX chops (My work with Yahoo! Kids would later translate to Thinga). One of my earliest projects was some of the first e-greetings ever made online, and I worked on some of the first iconography for mobile phones, drove the Yahoo-mobile, had work in the Smithsonian, and shook hands with George Lucas ... but that was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.
During my time at Yahoo! I opened Base Fine Art Gallery which operated full-time for almost four years, and transitioned to fine art studios for another three. We had amazing artists every step of the way, some of whom have gone on to incredible success. During this time in San Francisco we projected movies outside in a field overlooking downtown we called the Potrero Walk-Ins. Every week or so for roughly 5 years we showed movies to large crowds of people who participated.
In late 2004 we moved to Austin to have a change and raise a family. Design consulting and art-making continued, and our family business Verde Camp. I founded a wonderful little online tech company named Dipity, and interactive timeline tool allowing people to explore timelines in new ways, but it never became profitable. Soon I became VP of Design at Spanning Cloud Apps (acquired by EMC/Dell). From there I became co-owner of a small design group in Austin, Sputnik, and formed a kids and family brand named Bear James, and it’s extension Thinga.com an online platform and search engine for kids. Just before the pandemic, I got the idea to create a for-profit makerspace here in Austin, but that’s a fairly difficult business as it turns out .. and then the pandemic hit, wiping it out completely.
I currently work freelance, make art, and roast coffee which is a bonafide business as of early 2025. We’ve just converted a 1974 drivable Airstream into a coffee shop on wheels, which is WAY FUN.
Having a good time and keeping it moving … reach out and say hello, don’t be shy. —BJ