Diseño

In the spring of 2001 I lost my father to cancer. He was and still is very important to me. At his funeral
services I witnessed an amazing outpouring of affection for him from his many artistfriends and family
who had traveled from faraway places to say good-bye. In the last months of his life he had spoken to
me often about a collective spirit he believed in—one in which all of hisinteractions with others would
be remembered by those people and his spirit would live on in their memories of him. Several months
after his death I was reflecting back and came to appreciate more fully allthat he had done for me and
for his friends. I stepped back from my own life to observe my friendships. I had a few very close friends
but I thought that maybe, even in the middle of Los Angeles, Icould start something that might build
into a rewarding shared experience for more of my friends.
I fondly remember the creative energy and freedom my friends and I had while we were attending ArtCenter College of Design. I thought to myself it would be great to do work in that type of environment
again—surrounded by friends striving toward a common goal, inspiring and competing with eachother to
push our skills and visions to new levels. So from this memory, and a desire to build new friendships
and revive old ones, I proposed the idea of this book.
The original idea went somethinglike this: a group of friends meet every other month and share with
each other two original pieces of concept art each had created outside of their normal jobs. At the end
of a year’s time I wouldlaunch a small publishing company to publish and sell our first book, Concept
Design. The project went well—we all made time in the evenings and on the weekends to explore new
ideas and artistictechniques. That’s not to say that there wasn’t a mad rush at the end to try to wrap up
our images and text. It was now exactly as school had been…all-nighters included!
The majority of the color...