Hello! My name is Charlie.

Growing up, I got my fair share of playing outside, but my favorite parts of the day were when I could scribble, draw, and color on whatever paper I could find. I was obsessed with Saturday morning cartoons. Shows only some of my generation would even remember now.

I had a thing for comic books too, and I eventually started illustrating my own characters, building stories and character arcs for them in my head. Nobody asked me to. I just did it. Drawing got me into a lot of trouble in grade school too as I was called out in class more than once. Sorry, Mrs. Mackay.

That habit followed me straight into adulthood. For over twenty years I worked as a first responder. Long shifts, nights, weekends and holidays. I'd started to feel like a machine instead of a person, and that's not something you get back so easily once you notice it. Drawing and creativity got me through it. Less of a hobby at this point, and more of a way out. Eventually I retired early to start my own design business. Honestly, I could not have done it without the early support from friends and family.

There is just something to be said about real and raw human design. It's emotional and abstract and what I think attracts people. I still love the feel of pencil and ink. Not the finished drawing, necessarily. But the journey. The resistance of the pencil moving across textured paper or the little smears you didn't plan on. I try to drag that same friction into digital work.

After launching my business, my wife and I moved our family to Oklahoma to be closer to extended family. Most of my work now is sitting with business owners who know their brand but can't quite say what it is yet. That's what I love helping them discover, and the story I like to help them tell. Not every designer illustrates, and not every illustrator thinks in brand strategy. I try to do both. Human design for human brands.