Steve Jobs

Entrepreneur

Steve has changed and enhanced my life in many ways both personally and professionally. My first design company in New York became a beta tester for a computerized slide generation system where you could build charts and graphics using a computer and then send the files via modem to a slide house for output. The system ran on an Apple II and was responsible for me seriously pursuing art and design with the help of computers. I took courses at the New York Institute of Technology in computer graphics and animation and was getting interested in broadcast graphics as well.

Prior to the Macintosh being released, designers like myself produced “mechanicals” by hand using T-squares, ruling pens, xacto knives and photo stats. It was a very laborious process and you were never quite sure what the piece would look like when it came back from the pre-press house. The introduction of the Mac and software programs like Pagemaker and Illustrator and eventually PhotoShop transformed our industry almost overnight. You could quickly build a brochure on screen and see all the colors and photos as they would appear on the final film. It was truly revolutionary. I was an early adopter, pushing the technology to see what it could and couldn’t do as it kept advancing at an incredible rate.

By the early 90s I was a PhotoShop expert in high demand from ad agencies. I was living in California by that time and the technology and skills helped me launch a new design company I named FUSE. I continue to produce design work for my clients using the Mac to this day.

As far as the personal side, Steve’s innovations at Apple have changed my life for the better. iPods, iPhones and not too long ago the iPad. That last device really opened up so many avenues for creating art. As a result I started to post my work online for sale and have had a great response and consistent sales. It ultimately led me to apply for the LBaa and [seven-degrees] art grant which I won and I will be hanging my one-man show, “Change Agents” at [seven-degrees] in April 2017.

Oh, and let’s not forget Steve’s other great contribution, the company Pixar! He advanced the art of animation significantly through that company.