Douglas Smith
Art Director/Designer/Photographer
Originally from Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, Doug has been calling Phoenix, Arizona home for 27 years.
Education: Associates Degree in Advertising Arts.
Likes outside the graphic arts: Mountain biking, rock climbing, kayaking, snowboarding, exploring and traveling, Triumph motorcycles, alternative music, and culinary pursuits.

My enthusiasm, drive and outlook for the design and communication industry are just as strong today as when I started. I love what I do!

History: Prior to founding my own business, I had worked throughout many facets of the graphic arts field since 1983—initially as an outdoor billboard layout artist and pictorial painter, next a stint in the silkscreen industry, and then in corporate graphics departments and national design studios. (And freelancing on the side all the way along.) My traditional skills—paste-ups, marker renderings, illustration, type specifications, technical expertise of hand and camera production—gave me a foundation for the transformation that's taken place over the past 2 decades. Today's high-tech digital processes make it an ever-changing, educational, creative and exciting industry to work in.

For the past 12 years, I've also been doing my own photography. As is the case with traditional design, photography has evolved into a completely digital process. Having an extensive knowledge of Photoshop, art directing or assisting photo shoots, and working through editing processes and formats, enables me to provide my vision to the images I create.

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Chris Williamson
Associate Art Director/Designer
Originally from Colorado, Chris has been calling Arizona home for 19 years.
Education: Associates Degree in Visual Communications
Background: I've always been drawn to creating things. As a little kid, I used to make huge snow animals out of snow in my front yard. In school, I always took drawing and other art classes. Early in high school, I took a year of welding—and fell in love with the power to create something out of metal for four hours every day.

It was becoming clear that I needed to focus my future on a creative career. That's what I enjoy doing. So, as a senior, I took an AP/vocational course in graphic design, learning digital layout on the very first versions of products such as Adobe Photoshop, Pagemaker and Quark. We also worked on mechanical skills like building ads with PMTs and paste-up boards.

After high school, I relocated to Arizona to attend design school and immersed myself in digital and traditional design skills: desktop publishing, drawing, painting, marker renderings, ad concepts, design principles, video production for commercials and photography. I even purchased a top-of-the-line computer and software to push myself forward in what I believed was the future of graphic design. After graduating, I worked at several design jobs located in print shops, creating real-estate flyers and digital printing, and doing design work for large companies in the Tempe area.

When I joined Douglas Smith Design in 1994, our location within a print shop allowed me to learn more about traditional printing and how to create designs that were color correct and trapped properly to avoid prepress issues. Over the years, the transition from traditional printing to a completely digital process has been a challenge for the printing industry. By sharing our knowledge of computer and digital production with our print partners, and their sharing printing knowledge with us, it's always been a positive relationship for both companies.

We've been fortunate to have a steady workload for the last 16 years: lots of rush jobs, tight deadlines, event photography, product photography, websites and internet advertising. In the process, Doug and I have developed into a tight team, driven by excellent design and sound business—but never resting on our laurels, and continuing to focus on leveraging new technologies to better serve our customers.

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