My name is Alex Lockwood and I am a 23 year old graphic designer living and working in Cincinnati, OH.
What am I doing on the internet? Well, it started when I made a Myspace to practice some CSS back when I couldn't afford my own site. Eventually I got some friends, but I don't blog or anything too super social on the internet, I have a Flickr account for art and photographs. To get myself some web presence I've created multiple web portfolios, and in doing so have landed some pretty rewarding freelance work and met many wonderful people. I eventually made my own website, settling on the name HeIsLockwood for my solo endeavors. This name originated as the answer to the ambiguous questions "who is he, what does he do?" and "why do his pieces look like that?" Also, I think it has a memorable ring to it, and it's also a play off the book and movie I Am Legend, and the band I love by the name of He Is Legend.
So, I'm not an amatuer in the field of graphic design. I'm not completely self taught. I graduated high school in 2004 from a career technology center from the graphic art program there. I learned to hone my fine art skills here, and dabbled in the basics of Photoshop and Illustrator. Afterward I attended the School of Advertising Art for two years to recieve an Associates Degree. School taught me a lot about what to expect in the real world, and helped me refine my focus in design.
From school to the workforce where I currently dwell, I've had a lot of growing to do. As the industry grows, so do we as designers, and the biggest development in my place and time was the importance of the internet. I had to learn quick and dirty HTML/CSS just to stay afloat, and now have developed a taste for Flash and some jQuery. This has not left my hand-rendered past go to rot by any means. I still try to incorporate hand drawn elements or handmade textures into my work.
I've worked for a newspaper, a bigger agency, a smaller agency and even dabbled in full time freelance for a while. I've found experience in one can come in quite handy for another, and I've had the opportunity to meet many interesting people here in the Midwest.
My real passion for graphic design lies in typography and digital illustration. A nice headline paired with a well photoshopped composition. Can life get any better? I've become quite quick in Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and the like, and am most in my element when setting type, pushing pixels and plotting vectors. I'd like to think I'm a pretty creative fellow too, and I'm not afraid of writing copy. Not ALL of this copy is for SEO purposes, you know?
Thanks for stopping by — Alex