Bio

I am a designer / artist who was born and lives in Toronto, Canada. I have been involved professionally with Graphic Design and Traditional Art for about 15 years.

My career began in 1995 when I was hired as a Graphic Clean-Up artist for a video game company, ReadySoft Inc. That position soon evolved and I wore many hats while working there; Animation Cell-Painter, Q&A Game Tester, Public Relations, Product Demonstrator, and member of the Game Concept Committee.

Readysoft was eventually acquired by Malofilm Interactive and I began many of these new roles while under their management. Traveling played a big part in my responsibilities. Each month I would fly into Montreal where Malofilm’s head office was located to participate in meetings. I traveled across the United States on a press tour to demonstrate and promote the release of Jersey Devil for the Playstation.  In 1997, I attended E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) in Atlanta, Georgia where I demonstrated our products to members of the press.  When I wasn’t traveling, I was brainstorming with other members of my team about ideas and designs for new games. It was a very exciting point in my career.

As it happens so often in the world of business, Malofilm had to make drastic cuts for financial reasons and so the “Interactive” portion of the company faded away. I was one of the last to go. It was sad to depart but still, it was one hell of a ride.

After leaving Malofilm, I managed to secure a technical support contract with IBM Canada. My old manager, Gairy Ali, was kind enough to point me in their direction. I worked at IBM for a year before moving over to Rogers Communications as a Client Support Analyst.  This position was similar to the one at IBM where I supported computers and software. I did this at Rogers for 4 years. As you can see by now, my career path went off course from art and design and towards technical support. Sometimes the necessities of life steer you away from your ambitions.

Sure, I was making a good living but I wasn’t really happy with what I was doing. Deep down inside, I was still an artist and that part of me longed to surface again. So one day I decided to take a life drawing class at the Toronto School of Arts to rekindle that desire. It was exactly what I needed. I knew that my career needed art in it or I would die of bordom. I worked out an agreement with Rogers to work part time while attending college full time.

In the fall of 2000 I applied for and was accepted into the Visual Art Fundamentals program at George Brown College. This was a 1 year program in which I received a certificate and more importantly learned a great deal about design, layout, and printing. The following year I entered the Graphic Design program at George Brown and …