Cover Letter

January, 2017

Creative Fans,

When reading my online resume, there are a couple of things to note. One, as Creative Director with Global Vision, all the work that you see is my concept and production from cover to cover, including photography, design, and most of the writing. While I enjoyed my time at Global Vision, I believe projects like these are more effectively produced by a team (even if that means two people) rather than a single creative.

Secondly, my catalog design background was nurtured during my time in Chicago with Core 3 Creative. There I was the lead designer of the National Geographic catalog for several years. That included working location shoots in Costa Rica, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Spain. We traveled as a team to photograph and populate the catalog with product and on-figure shots, delivering the flavor of the location. Work with National Geographic was solid international experience, and led to many great relationships with photographers around the world.

Regarding skills, there are some things to note that are usually important to employers in creative fields. I thoroughly know the big three applications for producing work for print; namely Indesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator. I know the importance of typesetting a multiple page document in style sheets; the difference between rbg and cmyk; the technique of working in layers; retouching and color correcting; and the difference between a raster and vector file.

Of course the digital and web world is just as important. In my experience, I like to design websites within the context of the WordPress platform. While I would never pursue work and try to sell myself as a web developer, as a designer I can customize within a theme to find solid solutions. I’ve created child themes within WordPress to implement CSS and PHP changes to a theme; and of course, increased functionality of sites through the use of their extensive plugin library.

I practice personal journalism and visual storytelling through photography. I am as comfortable pounding the pavement of the world’s most interesting cities, as I am deep in the woods, on a stream with a fly rod, doing an over-nighter with friends. I explore lakes in Michigan with my canoe. I have traveled extensively and intend to travel more. I’m the member of an Ojibwa tribe. I’m often a calming agent among much chaos. I could probably eat tacos every day for the rest of my life. I’m a perfectionist moving past the habit of undervaluing myself. Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,
David McGowan

david@david-mcgowan.com