When did you know that this career was what you wanted to do?
I was always an artist but the title “starving artist” was something I was familiar with growing up in the Bronx and scared me enough to consider joining the military or doing something, anything else. Luckily a high school art teacher, Ms. Francis, taught us about Advertising Agencies and specifically the job of art director. I was fortunate enough to have a great internship with Jeff Weiss at Margeotes, Fertitta, and Weiss and then given my first job by the amazing, Madonna Badger at her first agency BadgerWay, where I learned a ton, and am very grateful.

What’s one of greatest challenges the industry is facing?
The ever evolving technological innovations are a constant challenge. Staying up to date with design technologies, new software, and advances in AI are a huge challenge for a designer who is trying to balance our ever evolving industry. Educating clients on what’s possible and what’s coming has always been difficult but with new technologies coming all the time it makes it even more challenging to stay up to date and keep your clients updated as well.

What is your dream project?
My dream is to work on something that has a long lasting impact. I’d love to have a hand in designing something that can be enjoyed and appreciated for generations to come.

This season, we’re celebrating two decades at the Davey Awards. What were some of your favorite movies from the early 2000s?
So many great, creative movies came out in the early 2000s from American Psycho with Christian Bale to Christopher Nolan’s, Memento there was a lot to choose from. But my creative reserves were best topped off by a weekend screening The Lord of the Rings trilogy and eating popcorn for breakfast, second breakfast and elevensies. LOTR creatively dominated the early 2000s for being visually stunning creatively inspiring.

What about music from the early 2000s?
I have a big range when it comes to music, for example, in the early 2000’s I was Big Pimpin’ up in NYC with Jay-Z but also feeling Smooth with Santana and Rob Thomas.

The AIVA Jury is in the middle of reviewing entries this season. What is your evaluation process for projects submitted this year?
I judge everything by my own criteria, which I call F.O.R.C.E. It’s an acronym that stands for – focused, ownable, relevant, continuous, and evocative. Starting with focus, is the submission visually focused, or is it cluttered or trying to communicate too many things. Is it ownable? Is it using borrowed interest or clip-art that anyone or any product can use? Is it relevant? Is it using appropriate visuals or is it just using cool visuals that have nothing to do with the communication. Is it continuous across time and in some cases media? Will the submission still work and look good 3 years from now? 5 years? Or is it just using a trendy font and the color of the year and will be dated in years to come. Is it continuous across media, if it’s a logo, does it work on a business card, will it still look good online? On the side of a truck? And last but far from least, is it evocative, does it evoke a feeling, a memory, does it make you feel warm and fuzzy inside? Does it have that cool factor? These are the things I judge all of my own creative by and try and score as high as possible on all five on all things I design.

When you submit your projects to the Davey Awards, we share them with our panel of Jurors like Michael at the Academy of Interactive & Visual Arts. While entries are officially closed, we do have a brief two-week Grace Period for small shops who need extra time to finish their submissions. The Grace Period closes this Friday, September 27th.