I've had a fairly interesting and rather unconventional career: I've worked as an illustrator, clothing designer, surf and snowboard shop owner, buyer for an e-commerce company, internet gift & gadget store owner and created a craft beer brand (Original Stormtrooper Beer).
The design and illustration was mostly old school - pen, paper, gouache and acrylic but with some late 90s Illustrator and Photoshop work thrown in.
When I became a buyer back in 2002, I put down the crayons and thought I'd probably never do anything particularly creative again; however with the advent of the craft ale business, it was my responsibility to decide on the brand identity which meant - initially and because I hadn't touched a pencil or Adobe program in two decades - compiling decks and creating design briefs for other artists to interpret and make material.
As things progressed I became more and more involved with creating packaging and merchandise etc, mostly recycling and developing the artwork the designers had come up with.
Then in 2023 when the noise around whole AI thing grew deafening, someone showed me something they had created with Midjourney and I had an epiphany. All the limitations I had had about being able to realise an idea, however complicated, disappeared and I happily fell headlong into the GenAI vortex. Suddenly everything was possible and I haven't looked back.
