A Graphic Artist Journey – The Beginning

My first freelance project as a graphic artist …

I’ll never forget my first freelance project as a graphic artist. I started working early in life. The first real job that I had to clock in, I was only 15. It was a restaurant, the Western Sun Restaurant off of the Austin Highway, San Antonio, Texas. It was this experience that qualified me to work at the Magic Time Machine and another San Antonio iconic restaurant … Reed’s Red Derby off of San Pedro. It was at Reed’s Red Derby where this story begins. I started at Reed’s Red Derby as a dishwasher, then promoted to busboy, expediter and waiter … and so on. This event happened before it was sold and converted into the restaurant Maggie’s.

Reed’s Red Derby was a clone of the popular “Friday’s”. Square bar in the center, brass everywhere, and the restaurant on three sides of the bar, with the kitchen located on the fourth side of the bar toward the back of the building. In the “Back” the kitchen and offices had the band “The Who” wallpapered almost everywhere. Keyword: Almost. lol I had made a discovery back then in my youth. It was that bare drywall makes a fantastic texture for illustrating with a pencil. So I began leaving little works of art, all over the back of the restaurant, but only on the drywall. I love to draw, to sketch, to doodle.

Anyway, the General Manager took note. One day I showed up for work and I got called into his office. I felt like I had just been sent to the principle’s office. Oh Gosh, what did I do I wondered… then he asked, are you the artist behind all of this “art”? Yes Sir, I am.

Well to my surprise, he wasn’t mad. He asked me to stop because he wanted me to illustrate a menu board for him, them a newspaper ad … then a table tent … to be the house graphic artist! (normally they used a mega advertising agency) He had a need and I could fill it! This was old school commercial art, “paste up”… with custom hand drawn illustrations, I loved it.

When offered an opportunity to create, I didn’t hesitate. That’s how I got my first start as a graphic designer. My boss saw in me, a talent as an Artist, and encouraged me to apply similar talents, as a Graphic Artist, to utilize my skills for our mutual benefit. I learned a lot from this General Manager. I applied this same perspective when I became a manager. I don’t have any art saved from back then … (although an old ad may be in an newspaper archive somewhere) but what fun I had. My first introduction where “Art” meets “Commerce”. What a great start!