The phrase "corporate identity design" seems to be a bit exclusive it sometimes frightens the smaller client who can't relate because they don't consider themselves "corporate."

A successful solution to the client's design needs requires a collaboration of my skills, talents and knowledge with the client's information base, history in their industry and personality.

Typically, there's about 20, 25 percent turnover every year. So, every three or four years with the exception of, as is the case with the Patriots and the quarterback, you have a roster turnover.

You're always having those life-skills type discussions about decision-making. It's just making sure you're making good decisions and going about your business. There are distractions in every city.

There's going to be different kinds of challenges on a yearly basis. You're going to have to overcome injuries, or you overcome a playoff loss or what have you. So there's always challenges in this business.

You address the respect issue in a team-meeting environment. With respect to its application, it's not just locker room. It's practice field. It's on and off the field. It's on Sunday, and it's on game days.

As designers we are influenced both consciously and subconsciously by everything we see around ourselves. Still, we always must try to avoid anything that has been defined as the latest and greatest "trend" in design.

I actually ran in junior high school a little bit, you know, like most kids do in track and things. Then I got out of it and just trained for football and played ball for so many years - high school, college and the NFL.

It's not a born-again thing; it was a peaceful, really, really cool moment where I just felt that I was no longer the dad anymore. I actually had become a son, and it makes things much easier from a day-to-day perspective.

Really successful designs can be created without software produced "special effects." Identities do not NEED bevels, gradations, 3-D imagery, Web 2.Oh-Oh and other oh so "special" treatments to be great design solutions for clients.

There's obviously a push to protect the quarterback, but you have to give the defensive players a chance. All of the quarterback has to do is pull the ball, and he's a runner. How's the defender going to know if the ball is pulled or not?

Our philosophy here, guys, is we're going to work as long as we have to to get the work done. I'm not one that wants the coaches to compete to see who can get in the earliest, who stays the latest, who passes themselves on the way into work in the morning.

We have rules in the rule book that are very specific. If the quarterback is in a throwing position, he gets protection. But in the event that the ball is handed off, at that instant, there's no telling whether or not he is a runner or not, so he loses that protection.

External research never depends on the size of the payment being received it is primarily determined by what is needed to create the best possible solution to the client's desires and requirements. The research required is also dependent upon the specific project or industry.

You're moving a franchise. You're leaving one city and going to another, which is difficult from a fan standpoint, from a fan-base standpoint, but you have to take care of the detail things. As you go through that step-by-step process, from my standpoint, my job is to keep in mind the player needs.

Graphic design was largely about communication in an artistic or creative manner, much like writing is used to convey ideas. Many designers completely miss that aspect of the "art." Some are completely satisfied with just making things pretty, without taking the communication element into consideration.

I had this moment in church, which I think really turned me off. I was 7 or 8 years old and I was sitting at church, and we happened to be playing with the sunlight that was coming down from the stained glass window, and the monsignor came down to the pew and grabbed us by our neck collars and said, 'I'll deal with you.'

I couldn't identify just one, but there's numerous rule changes and points of emphasis that have reflected a change on the field almost immediately. It's hard to avoid the horse-collar tackle, for example, but the players understand why the rule is in there - because of the injury rate prior to us making that a personal foul.

The K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Stupid) principle was pounded into my head in school and I still follow it today in most of my designs. I know that my most successful efforts are the simplest. I always find myself trying to subtract detail from design concepts in an attempt to distill the idea down to the most basic communication tool.

For me, between "Reference" and "Sketching & Conceptualizing" is the "Get the Hell Out of the Studio" step. I most often NEED to shut off the computer, push myself back from my desk and escape the studio space to let possible ideas percolate in my gray matter before committing anything to paper or digital imagery as a sketch or a concept.

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