Autobiography

BEEMO is the graphic design studio of Brian Morris. I’ve been “graphic designing for life” since 1997. Currently based in Manhattan, New York, I have worked in several other international cities large enough to have their own subway systems.

Studying psychology at the University of North Carolina for four years, I had dreams of becoming a scientist – specifically a cognitive psychologist. My senior thesis in the cognitive psychology department was an experiment on letter-detection with one part dealing directly with differences in typographic perception (a precursor to my graphic design endeavors). Fresh out of school, I began working in a research laboratory which performed clinical studies for cancer and AIDS drugs.

Toyota VanAfter six months of carefully repetitive tasks and the notion of animal testing beginning to turn my stomach, I returned to my college town and skateboarded for half a year with all of my friends who were in their 5th and 6th years of college. I bought my favorite car in the entire world, a 1986 Toyota Van LE and drove it all up and down the east coast to punk rock shows. Life was grand!

Then one day my money was gone and it was time to get a job. Living in a small town on the coast of North Carolina, I quickly realized there would be few “career options,” so I took a job as a 3rd shift donut maker/finisher at Dunkin’ Donuts. This would become the absolute worst job of my entire life. Going to work at 10pm, leaving at 6am quickly turned me into a grumpy vampire, but I was able to see plenty of beach-front sunrises (something I rarely had the privilege to take part in). After a sleepless, red-eyed month of this sugary mess, I left.

During my college years, I hosted a radio show and often made flyers for special radio events (punk rock benefit in my house!) as well as flyers for my friends’ bands. So, after my stint at the donut factory, I thought I’d take a crack at making flyers for money at the local print shop.

After answering an ad in the Wilmington Star-News, I got a job typesetting at Pip Printing (a desktop publishing/printing franchise) for $5/hr. Without having a clue how to use any of the software on my Windows 95 box, I laid out business cards in PageMaker by “eyeing” the 12-up layout as best I could. I quickly figured out how to automatically “copy and paste-in-place.” My boss owned another of these franchises and rarely showed up in our office, which left Pat the Vietnam veteran pressman and myself to get all the work done. I became good friends with Pat (who was my father’s age), oftentimes sharing a beer with him after work on Fridays. Consequentially, he taught me a lot about how to operate an offset printing press – mixing inks, accounting for subtle differences in papers, and how wearing a necktie around a press is generally not a good idea if you’re interested in keeping your neck attached to the rest of your body.

Eventually, my boss would fire me for my refusal to complete his accounts receivable paperwork—jerk. I kept in touch with Pat for a little while, but eventually lost contact with him.

A week later, I got another job at a print shop – this time a locally-owned one, Dock Street Printing. I really enjoyed working there. It was a creative time for me because I was continuously learning more about printing and design/layout. During this period, I continued to ride my skateboard, go to rock shows, and learned quite a bit about fixing cars due to my old van breaking down all the time. I also started to make “one-of-a-kind” greeting cards by gathering thrown-away photographs behind photo developing shops, then calling paper companies requesting swatchbook samples. With a 50-year old manual typewriter, I’d type interesting messages that tied in to the hijacked photographs. That year, I left my job in order to make and sell these greeting cards.

That year, I also lived next door to a bonsai farmer and learned the basics of bonsai—something I’ve consistently neglected but always had a great interest in.

Then I moved to Tampa, Florida where I worked for Kinkos. As many horror stories as I have from irate customers demanding their resumes typed in 5 minutes, these two years were some of my most creative. Having access to computers, copiers, a bindery, etc allowed me to experiment with type, layout, printing, copying, and everything else under the sweltering Florida sun. It was there that I first began freelancing too, that is to say Bartering 101. Probably my most memorable gig was making an invitation for the International Jazz Hall of Fame event and getting nice seats with backstage passes to shake hands with several true legends of jazz—Lionel Hampton, James Moody, Ray Brown, Steve Allen, Grady Tate, Lou Donaldson, Harry “Sweets” Edison, etc. I took my mother that night, I even wore a tie. Aside from Steve Allen, she didn’t know who any of these old timers were, but boy oh boy was she happy to see me in that tie!

During my first year at Kinkos, my favorite car in the world, a 1986 Toyota Van LE, was stolen from the parking lot while I was at work. I lost a few good mix tapes, a few bucks, and my favorite car in the whole world. Most people think those vans are crap (with the exception of a good friend of mine who has been driving his every since I met him in 1990), but I think they’re the greatest thing since the horse and buggy.

So, eventually I left Kinkos and got a job working for Johnny Cairo Studios, a small studio in downtown Tampa. The coolest part of working there was working alongside of my boss and making a cigar label, which I can’t for the life of me remember what the name of the cigar brand was.

After three blood-boiling summers in Florida, I packed up my “new” white Mazda MPV and headed for the Northern Virginia/Washington DC area. My brother was living there and I missed hanging out with him, so I made the trip. I got a job at Sprint’s Public Data Service Center where I managed X25 and Frame Relay networks. It was a huge departure from my past job history, but it was completely new and I’ve always enjoyed learning something new. During this time, I helped automate a lot of regular tasks by designing and developing parts of the group’s intranet. I also built my first web site that year for a company called Savli Group, a networking consulting firm.

After a year of learning a wealth of network-related acronyms, I headed off to Europe for a long-needed vacation. I had originally planned the usual rail pass venture to Amsterdam, Paris, and the like. What I never counted on was meeting up with a group of multimedia students that would inspire me to this very day. So, the transcontinental 2-weeker ended up being the Amsterdam 3-monther. Those three months were probably the best three months of my life. Amsterdam would make a lasting impression on me—the city itself, its history, culture, but more than that all of the fantastic people I met. During these summer months, I helped a buddy of mine with his projects as well as attended a summer lecture series on interactive multimedia. The latter would give me an edge on the years to come in terms of making things for the internet.

As all good things come to an end, I left Schipol one day and ended up at Dulles International Airport. My beat-up Mazda MPV had been sitting at a friend’s house for months, so I drove it back to Tampa, Florida.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from moving my whole life, it’s that coming back to a place you’ve once lived before is never what you expect it to be. I only lasted a few months in Florida before I decided to move to New York.

So, I’m in NYC. Obviously, my first job was at a restaurant—Ecco-La on the Upper East Side. If by some chance I waited on your table, please accept my apologies because I know I must be the worst waiter in the history of bad waiters.

Shortly after, I landed a job at UWG, a multi-cultural advertising agency focused on delivering creative to targeted markets (namely, black and hispanic). I worked with a few departments there, but the highlight of my time with this company had to be the interaction I had with the founder, Byron Lewis. Mr. Lewis is a hell of a man, a true visionary – I sincerely enjoyed soaking up all of his wisdom he shared with me.

A year later, I began working for a company that I would affectionately (and jokingly) call the “blood-sucking ad agency.” The truth is, however, that I learned SO much there and was lucky enough to be surrounded by a group of immensely creative and intelligent people.

I’ll try to fill in the gaps from 2000-2006, but now I think here is a good place to stop…