Yes, I make a living as a graphic designer. My aesthetic is not only "simple but elegant," it involves legibility and the relationship with the reader/viewer. As in — what's the point? There is too much over-design, too much stupid design, too much neglectful design, too much mean-spirited design, and too much design that actually hurts the mind to experience.

I am a perennial student of typography and the printing arts. The history of letterforms is the history of writing is the history of our knowledge as history itself. Typefaces were created by artists who laboriously constructed each letter via designs and handwork. Letters in our Western tradition are forms that lead to sound, different from Chinese ideograms which are akin to pictures.

Words are built in the mind, but become clothed in myriad typefaces. Our words can actually seem to have different meanings by how they look. Every typeface was designed by someone in order to make words look bold, beautiful, or distinctive. We are surrounded by letterforms used to convey ideas and messages. Though literary arts do have their beginnings in the oral tradition, most of our efforts desire to end in print. From Mr. Gutenberg through the Renaissance and onward to today’s pixel world—words and type are interdependent.

Book design is my forte, but I apply its principles to magazines, booklets, catalogs, advertisements, tickets, and the diverse manifestations of printed matter. Images are always important but the busy glut of most publications cause me to turn the page or ignore the intention. So I always revise to essentials, by being reductive there is an increase to the immediacy of the message. Those essentials will not only get across the intention but be perceived with goodwill.

In the Links section is the website for Jakob Nielsen who is an advocate of "useability" for web design. Web optimization studies show that a typical website visitor is comfortable reading from a monitor only about half of what they would read on the printed page. The need for "white space" is critical. Navigation is imperative. How many times have you sat waiting for a graphic to upload only to find the site confusing and a waste of your precious lifespan? Nobody needs any more confusion. Nobody needs more annoyance. We desire straight answers to our questions. When common sense prevails, everyone is happy.

When I work with clients we engage in a process that involves brainstorming, choices, variations, tweeking, and agreement. The best situations are when all involved say "beautiful." Or "that's it." Longtime clients eventually create an identity through their printed matter and the elements of design. Elegance conveys distinctiveness. Elegance usually involves restraint and grace, but can also mean exactness and precision. An elegant solution is like Ockham's Razor in science where the simplest theory is preferred and is usually the one that works best. "Verified in proof" is Beatrice Warde's old printing adage.

I like color. I like the color of black type on the empty space of a page, but as a painter I'm enamored by the incredible variations of hue and tonalities. Much of my color work involves finding a right color that is extraordinary, that is harmonious, that is appealing. I spend a lot of time going back and forth with the Pantone color books looking at the variations of ink recipes. Of course budget is always a concern and sometimes, if not often, the reality is the use of two colors on the printed matter. In these cases I attempt to use the range of tones to create a sensation of more colors. Selection of paper is also important—its color and weight add a whole other dimension. What message is conveyed with recycled, laid, or coated?

Good design is about selection and arrangement. Graphic design is about the selection and arrangement of information. Headlines, subtitles, footnotes, sidebars, numbers, items, text, and pictures, etc. We call it layout or composition, and sometimes it's easy and sometimes exquisitely difficult. What needs to result is both vibrant and logical. All the good designers I know share the same obsessiveness that I do in moving elements around, shifting relationships, enhancing parts until something clicks. The gift is intuitive and involves a sense of trust in the experimental.

I keep the advice I found in a fortune cookie from the Peking Noodle Company tacked above my computer:

"Stick to the basics, be weary of novelties."