Hailing from the suburbs of Upstate South Carolina, Brian was always drawing, doodling, and making things as a child. Despite being a generally good student, Brian just couldn't stop doodling on homework, spelling tests, math quizzes, and the like. He exasperated both his parents and teachers with his excessive mark making. Even after breaking his dominant hand skateboarding, Brian learned to draw with his other hand, turning the empty canvas of his cast into a graffitied shell while he healed.
All of this doodling led to studying art and design in college, and when he wasn't doing class assignments and projects, he was still doodling. He did, however, find time to become an accomplished intramural tennis player, where he eventually bet a painting to his rival that he would win the championship, which after seven sets, he subsequently lost. He also found time to help his roommate and his bandmates haul gear, make flyers for upcoming shows, and help run a small indie rock music zine. Brian still fondly recalls the day he came home from classes to find a voicemail from none other than Ian MacKaye (of Fugazi and Minor Threat fame), and will tell you about it given the chance.
The collegiate life eventually gave way to a stint in the Navy, where Brian took his formal design training, along with his doodling, to provide graphic design, journalistic, photographic, and video support for a variety of combat and humanitarian relief missions across the globe. While on deployment, he even found an outlet for his drawing and doodling cravings by creating a comic strip for the USS Boxer (LHD 4) ship's newsletter, poking lighthearted fun at the challenges and rigors of life underway.
After six years of life on the sea, Brian took his formal design training, practical experience from military service, and his incessant doodling to graduate school. While in grad school, Brian discovered UX Design, usability testing, and multimedia content creation. With these newly-acquired skills, Brian did consulting work and design for the likes of Adobe, Clemson University's College of Art, Architecture, and Humanities, the Carolina Rhetoric Conference, academic book publishers, and others.
After grad school, Brian took a position in the Department of English at Virginia Tech, teaching courses in content creation for the web, Graphic Design, Digital Media, and Technical Writing. While he enjoyed teaching and research, the siren call of creating grew louder every semester. Eventually, he left academia for the private sector, working in UX, Graphic Design, and Brand Development for a variety of clients, and engaging in passion projects, where doodling may or may not play a salient role.
Brian enjoys traveling (88 countries on six continents, and counting), cooking, reading, performing stand up comedy, and exploring nature with his trusty American Bulldog rescue, Sir Bruno. On many of these adventures you will find him with a sketchbook in his possession.
Brian enjoys traveling (88 countries on six continents, and counting), cooking, reading, performing stand up comedy, and exploring nature with his trusty American Bulldog rescue, Sir Bruno. On many of these adventures you will find him with a sketchbook in his possession.