my name is Tyler Brown.
I design, therefore i am.
Though, I Am also:
a long-haired metalhead;
a battle vest blacksmith;
a tattoo-branded pirate;
a nose-pierced hooligan;
a Marvel marveler;
a Funko-collecting freak;
a self-proclaimed movie critic;
a jigsaw puzzle piece pusher;
a semi-semi-semi pro video gamer;
a former tenor saxophone player;
a son, brother (x2), & uncle (x3);
a “pawpa” to a very hairy German Shepherd;
a dungeon master. I am every monster;
a helluva lot of other stuff!
RIVALS GROUP
GRAPHIC DESIGNER
Corridor Digital
The Dangie Bros
Daniel LaBelle
Dude Perfect
Excision
Knife Party
Mark Rober
Mash Gang
Mr. Technodad
Papa Jake
Snifferish
Stephen Sharer
Technoblade
Technoblade x Dream
Technoblade x Jack Manifold
Technoblade x Ph1lza
Technoblade x Skeppy
Technoblade x Tommyinnit
The Space Gal
Tension Envelope Corporation
PREPRESS DESIGNER
Ameren
Farmers Insurance Group
Fiserv / First Data
SiriusXM
Spire Energy
United States Postal Service
Image Market
GRAPHIC DESIGNER
First National Bank of Omaha
MARKETING DESIGN
Henry Schein
MGM
Murphy USA & Murphy Express
QuikTrip
Scheels
Sheetz
Bailey Lauerman
GRAPHIC DESIGNER
Bellevue University
Best Western
Community America Credit Union
Ducks Unlaimited
Farmer's Mutual of Nebraska
Fiat Chrysler Automotive
Nebraska Tourism
Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo
Sun Pacific: Cuties Citrus & Mighties Kiwi
Valley Irrigation
YRC Freight
Godat Design
GRAPHIC DESIGN INTERN
BioSphere2
DILAS Diode Lasers
HTG Molecular
University of Arizona College of Science
Pro Bono / Non-Profit
FREELANCE & STUDENT GRAPHIC DESIGNER
Community Foundation for Southern Arizona
Dancing in the Streets Arizona
Faithful Friends Animal Advocates
The Loft Cinema
Tucson Police Department
T. Brown Design
FREELANCE GRAPHIC DESIGNER
Burn The Grave
A Catalyst for Destruction
France-Arizona Institute GGC
Holloman AMMO Softball
I See Stars
Mirrors
Ohana Screen Master
Palo Verde Magnet High School
Sunflower Mechanical Services
Taste of Vervain
Three Dimensional Spooks
Tribunus
Xander Leonis
MY DESIGN practice BEGAN IN 2008 WITH A MULTIMEDIA CLASS DURING MY SOPHOMORE YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL IN EWA BEACH, HI.
I received my first hands-on experience with a variety of technologies including photography, videography, and my instant-favorite: Photoshop. I was enamored by the ability to create whatever I want, whenever I want.
In the early days of my practice, I dabbled with designing and coding MySpace layouts, images for the footer “signature” section for Xbox 360 forum users (if you know what to look for, you can still find it out there in the ether), small bands / musicians, and small side projects for family and friends.
Having no budget for design programs, I started learning a freeware-version of Photoshop, the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP). After struggling with finding adequate tutorials to learn the program, but finding an abundance of Photoshop tutorials, I ended up illegally pirating Adobe Photoshop CS4. That’s proof I’m a pirate, and I’ve got my entire chest tattooed to prove it!
I MOVED FROM HAWAII TO ARIZONA IN 2009 with A BIT OF FUNCTIONAL DESIGN EXPERIENCE UNDER MY BELT.
Naturally, one of the electives I chose during my Junior year of high school was an Image Manipulation (Photoshop) class. Being slightly ahead of the curve with some self-taught experience, I excelled and did what I could to help the instructor and other students learn the programs. That’s when I first learned that I really enjoy sharing graphic design knowledge with others.
When I graduated from high school in 2011, I didn’t have much of a plan towards a career in graphic design.
I had been a marching band kid, but didn’t want to keep playing after 7 years. I didn’t see it as a path for a secondary education. I also didn’t have any clue how to apply my graphic design skill set to a career beyond the spotty freelance work I had done.
I was unsure of what I wanted to do, so I ultimately enlisted in the Navy intending on becoming a Hospital Corpsman and pursuing an education in medicine. I went to basic training from October to December 2011, but was ultimately discharged for anxiety and stress fractures in my hip. Fresh out of flunking basic training, I decided I should pursue a career in the skill-set I’d cultivated for myself over the previous 3 years or so.
IN APRIL 2012, I BEGAN ATTENDING THE ART INSTITUTE OF TUCSON IN the middle of nowhere, ArizonA.
I started my secondary education with the core curriculum as well as the fundamental classes: color theory, drawing, image manipulation, math, English, etc. It was at this point that I really thought of myself as a graphic designer, and not just a hobbyist. I was learning what graphic design truly encompassed, and while it was about the visual communication, it was also about the psychology.
I attended a small hole-in-the-wall for-profit college. A lot of the students in my early classes were of other disciplines like photography, fashion, film-making, animation, and web design. It took several semesters before the students in my classes were narrowed down and studying the same field as me. Design school was where I met some of the most influential people in my career. Some of them are still my peers to this day, and my buddy Will Freeland who is one of my best buddies.
James “Jim” Lienhart and Ken Godat are the two most important mentors that have guided my design career.
Jim Lienhart formerly of Lienhart Design, one of the prestigious Chicago 27 Designers, is probably the funniest, raunchiest, yet most wholesome old men I’ve ever met. What resonated so well between him and I from the get-go was that we are both Nebraska natives, albeit ~60 years apart. He also would talk to me straight. He didn’t beat around the bush, and was always honest and objective with the sage advice and criticism he provided. He did it for all of the design students who cared about their future in design. He’s a real designer’s designer.
Our student resources advisor “helped” place students get into internships that were required to be completed before receiving our degrees. In this case, I was assigned to a mom and pop mailing-service shop that had acquired printing equipment to diversify their income. Essentially, I was told my job was to recreate business cards and take out the trash. The owner constantly talked about his wife’s Reiki business, and I was told from day 1 that his son had final say on anything graphic design related, even though he didn’t have experience with any design-related programs. What a great internship that was turning out to be. I quit after just two days. I was there to learn the business of graphic design, not provide unpaid trash and bathroom cleaning services. I was frustrated and a bit jaded at the time, but it was for the right reason. I wanted to be a better graphic designer.
After determining that my school wasn’t going to link me to a truly influential internship, I sought one out myself. I shopped my resume and spiel around to a variety of relevant design-centric businesses, but it was Ken Godat of Godat Design who reached out just to have a conversation about what I was wanting out of my career.
I remember the sit-down distinctly:
Ken’s business is this cool little adobe building in downtown Tucson. I drove around probably 3 or 4 times trying to determine if I was in the right place, but that silver sign above the door told me I was in the right spot. Unfortunately, I showed up probably 15 minutes early or so and I didn’t want to be that weirdo sitting outside in his car. Eventually the time came and I knocked on the front door (it was locked because they all park and enter through the back), which was a bit awkward. I remember sitting at a long metal table with all of their projects and print publications lining the walls. Ken invited me back into his office which was a tall room dividing half of put against the back wall by some pseudo-cubicle walls with notes and drawings posted all over them. Ken Godat sat on the left side and Jeff Jonczyk on the right.
I sat awkwardly on Ken’s small white couch with his plethora of art and design books on the shelf to my right, a few piled on the short table in front of me and Ken in his desk chair on the opposite side. At this point, I didn’t have much in my portfolio beyond school projects, but some of them had won some bronze student Addy awards. I had this huge 11 X 17 binder with all of my works nicely printed, hole punched, and in some semblance of order for a portfolio. It was probably 12-15 pieces. I remember it being weird flipping through trying to explain what I did and why I did it. At the time, I felt like I was making a fool of myself. Ken didn’t seem to think so, though. After asking me about my aspirations, he offered me an internship. That’s when I knew for a fact that being a graphic designed was what I wanted more than anything.
I graduated with my bachelors of science in graphic design in 2015.
The first thing I did after I graduated was move from Tucson to Omaha where my family lived. This is where my graphic design career actually began. After I moved, Ken reached out to offer me a job at Godat Design. I turned him down because I had just made the arduous journey of relocating to Nebraska. Hindsight is 20/20 and it would’ve been cool if I took him up on it.
I was still working for a company in Arizona called Learning A-Z where I had been editing static illustrations from printed children’s books and making them usable for animating into ebooks. I had been doing this for a couple of years at this point, and I did it for about another year after I relocated. In Omaha I did a variety of jobs from doing in-house contract design work at Bailey Lauerman, to Marketing Design selling credit cards for 13 months at First National Bank of Omaha, to rapid shirt-design production for screenprinting at Image Market. It wasn’t until a slump in work in 2018 that I pursued a job in Kansas City, MO.
I AM A CHIEFS FOOTBALL FAN. Always have been, always will be.
Even when we were terrible. It wasn’t until I moved to Kansas City to start my job at Tension Envelope Corporation that I really became a balls-to-the-wall gung-ho fanatic. That’s just one of the perks of my relocation. I’ve been to two Chiefs games and even witnessed Travis Kelce receiving a touchdown pass in the corner of the end zone, 30 feet in front of me. It was awesome.
March 12th, 2018, I became a Prepress Operator at Tension Envelopes. I didn’t have any real print-production experience under my belt. I knew screenprinting and 4-color process (CMYK) like an inkjet printer. There was a solid learning curve when it came for optimizing design work for flexographic printing. Flexography was a printing method I had never heard of. The design is exposed onto a photosensitive polymer printing plate and then that plate is used that to impress the artwork onto an envelope, much like a stamp. Tension prints at a rate of approximately 1,000,000 envelopes per machine, per day, and that’s nearly 2,000,000,000 envelope per year (or 15 trips to the moon!). In the years spent there I worked on a boatload of interesting projects outside of the prepress scope. I’ve helped create incentive campaigns for waste management goals, designed company t-shirts, directional signage, informational and promotional posters, physical envelope-machine button pad redesigns / replacements, in-house proofing checklists, other crucial proofing forms, and “Good Catch” programs. I’ve also helped optimize the prepress workflow to be quicker and more efficient, and have created video tutorials and motion graphics. If I were to go soup-to-nuts about all of the projects I’d worked on at Tension, this section would span on for a dozen more paragraphs.
Out of the envelope factory and into the rivalry.
In April of 2022, I began freelancing for Rivals Group. They needed a designer who could mock-up a slew of artwork onto garments: hats, tees, hoodies, cups, beanies, etc. You name it, they needed it mocked. While working at Tension, I took on this second job and worked tirelessly to meet the requested deadlines. In July of 2022, they brought me on full-time and I left the prepress job at Tension.
Corridor Digital, Dangie Bros, Daniel Labelle, Dude Perfect, Excision, Knife Party, Mark Rober, Mash Gang, Mr. Technodad, Papa Jake, Snifferish, The Space Gal, Stephen Sharer, and Technoblade all crossed my desk. Dude Perfect and Technoblade more-so than the rest. The 18 months I spent with Rivals let me flourish as a graphic designer, and taught me so much about art direction and the business of design for profit. Rivals ended with a bang, and not a whimper. Let’s find what’s next!