The Short Tale of Justin Jason

Born and raised in rural central Ohio by an open and supportive family I reflect little of the qualities of my native small-town, Mt. Gilead. Perhaps the acceptance from my parents helped to ward off the closed mindedness that surrounded me growing up. Somehow I managed one day to find myself contemplating the life decision of which college to attend. My creative drive told me to pick art school while my rational mind told me anything but art school. Either way the scholarship to Columbus College of Art & Design spoke for itself and I listened.

Attending Columbus College of Art & Design in fall of 1993 I began a course of self-exploration that led me through many areas of visual communication. Following my love for technical complexity I entered into the Industrial Design major, only to find after a year that I missed working with pure imagery too much. Switching to Fine Arts I explored various mediums and began to hone my own personal aesthetic. Watercolor and photography became my mediums of choice and I soon changed major again to Fine Arts - Photography. In this major I was exposed to several processes that really took hold of my creative drive. Animation, digital imagery and interactivity opened up a whole new door of expression for me and soon filled up almost every waking moment. Realizing that with the digital revolution I could make a living and be creative I soon changed my major to Time-Based Media Studies.

Graduating in Dec. of '97 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, I soon found work in my field at Painted Rain Interactive. At PRI, I quickly moved up the ranks from Creative Production to Senior CD-ROM Developer and finally to Art Director. The time spent at Painted Rain allowed me to sharpen my interactive development skills and to learn the ins and outs of web development. Designs for corporate identity, intuitive navigation and tech savvy where all implemented regularly through PhotoShop, Flash, DreamWeaver and Director. I often found myself meeting with clients and potential clients, working to visualize their needs and message. I also found that money isn't all it takes to run a new business. The naive court reporters who started the company had little idea of how to profit from new media.

As PRI crumbled I soon found my way to DigiKnow, a solid company started in '93 by an ad agency (at least!). I have found bliss working at DigiKnow, it's simply the greatest work environment I could hope for! Headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, DigiKnow also has satellite offices in Columbus and Dallas, Texas. I work in the Columbus office located in the Smith Bros. Hardware building (a building which I spent many days exploring prior to it's renovation in 1997).

Outside of DigiKnow I have taken on a few freelance website designs. Great friends of mine, Carrie and Eric Frey, commissioned me to design a site for their growing company, Jaw Networks. Working with a provided logo and color scheme I developed the first site design in the Spring of '02. In early Spring of '03, an updated version of the site was launched with a modified page layout throughout the site.

In 2001 I designed a site for another friend who is a tattooist, Kat Dearwester aka f-14 HellKat. The site has since been redesigned by someone else though.

I created a snack food logo, wine ad and an online CD store banner in 2003.

During the Fall of 2006 I set up the Chop Chop Gallery website for a fellow CCAD alum, Craig Dransfield. He designed the site and I put it all online for him. The site highlights the Gallery/Studio collective that he and Ashley Puckett co-organized in downtown Columbus.

I typically have a painting in progress at all times and tend to sketch every couple weeks. I also have a constant urge to create music. Check out the "Listen" section for examples of my music.

I own a house near Columbus with my beautiful wife Nikki, and I love spending time adding our personal touches to it. We've remodeled almost each major room one way or another. Nikki adds her own special touch through quilts and fabric art.

Outside of work I can be found on my roller plank (AKA skateboard). Nikki and I love to skateboard and often visit the great concrete temples such as the Athens and Louisville skateparks. We have been to Nashville to skate the infamous "General". During winter break in 2005 we made a pilgrimage out west and skated Fontana, Upland, Chino and Glendale. The culmiation of the trip was when we stumbled upon the original Jeff Ho shop just recently re-opened in Venice.

We upgraded to a digital SLR camera in the summer of 2006 and have been using it often. So much I've finally put together a legitimate site dedicated to our photos (primarily skating photos). You can see them here: www.skatepharm.com

For Halloween 2003, we took a Frank Loyd Wright trip to Chicago's Oak Park to see about 10 of Wright's houses. We were blessed to see yet another Frank Gehry building in progress on our trip. The first time was the Peter B. Lewis Building, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, and the most recent was the Millennium Park Music Pavilion.

I like to travel as often as possible and have thus far been to Europe twice. The first trip was to Paris and London in 1998, and the second was with Nikki to Paris, Brussels, Rotterdam and Amsterdam in 2000. I've also found New England, particularly Vermont, is a great place to get away from Ohio to. Nikki and I liked the area so much we even got married in the White Mountains of New Hampshire in 2002. Seeking out art and enlightenment of all kinds, I plan to continue travels as often as my wallet will allow.

-Justin Jason