welcome to the kitchen
Welcome, welcome, everyone! I am so excited to launch my fully licensed LLC, and I thank you for taking the time to read this.
That is…a really weird name for a business.
I can explain, but take a step, trip, tumble through time with me for a moment.
I fell in love with graphic design while designing the Student Life pages for The Flor-Ala, the University of North Alabama’s student newspaper, back in 2013. I couldn’t get enough of laying out the pages, and I’d even help other editors with their sections. I learned everything I could about graphic design completely on my own, since I was a student majoring in Journalism who didn’t want to switch majors so late in the game.
In 2016, I graduated with a bachelor of arts and landed my first job at Gatehouse Media’s Center for News & Design (don’t bother looking it up, it was acquired by Gannett in 2019). I began laying out newspapers from all over the country, but it wasn’t quite as fulfilling as I’d hoped. I began my own freelance business, KDan Designs, and made that my passion outside of work until…well, August 1.
In 2018, I was hired by the University of North Alabama to work under the legendary Karen Hodges – if you live in the Shoals and don’t know this name, you’re missing out on a whole, whole lot. Karen taught me so much about design, and she still does. She humbled me a ton. And I mean a metric butt-ton. She still does! But in college, and shortly after completing my undergraduate degree, I really thought I knew it all. As time went on and I learned more and more about graphic design, I learned that I really didn’t know it all….
In fact, I know nothing.
Not too long ago, I heard my partner, Sam, talking with His Boys™. They’d repeatedly use the phrase “in my humble onion,” which they fully disclosed they did not invent. Regardless, that phrase turned over and over in my mind like an infinite hourglass. I knew I was way past needing to revamp my business and my image, and I needed to take it much more seriously. humble onion was perfect.
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I want to help people. I want to make ugly things pretty. I want to convey something that has never been expressed before.
But I’ve also come to find that graphic design is so incredibly subjective. There are recommended methods of practice, there are definitive artistic principles, but for the most part, the old adage is true, even in graphic design:
Rules were made to be broken.
The next step in my personal graphic design journey is to seek humility. Your friend comes to you for advice because they trust you and your judgment. Do they always take your advice? Of course not. Same goes for all of us – same goes for me. I want to make art. I want to entice people to keep reading, to learn more, to get lost in a publication or a brand. I have been blessed with so many clients who have believed in me and taken me up on offering design and copywriting services. And I hope that you’ll enjoy following along with me as I continue to learn, explore, and share. I want this to be an opportunity for me to be transparent with my thoughts, and I hope for this – in conjunction with the social media accounts – to be a learning experience for us all. But as I take this next great leap into my own licensed LLC, I am keeping one thing in mind about the services I offer, the insights I share, and the concepts I deem important….