My name is Rafe Carson. I am web designer and graphic artist. I am striving to master digital imagery, web design, & new media technologies; and have recently began expanding my talents to include my own digital online magazine and freelance graphic/web design.
I have always found art as a great pass time. I started drawing comic books that were inspired by my life when I was seven years old. My school friends and teachers, for example, became the subject of my comic books. My close friends became superheros and my teachers were transformed into super villains with enormous evil powers.
At about 13 years old, I took several art classes at the Sangre Cristo Arts Center, a place that provided me with art instruction. Within these classes I learned about balance, color, & composition. I also took up a few skills on how to draw from what I see. The skills I had learned were not the only things I had learned while taking classes, I discovered a great passion and inspiration in what I was creating, I realized that art was what I wanted to pursue.
I found myself drawing comic books again, now older and much more accomplished, I began moving into character design. Instead of drawing full length comics, I designed very specific and detailed super hero. From the clothing to the haircut to the slightest muscle in the movement of the face, I had to render the character flawlessly. Character design became not only a great hobby but a intense study of intricate details and overall character design.
When my family bought their first computer, character design became the foundation for my digital art work.
All the computer had was that simple paint program with only sixteen colors to choose from; but at the time that was enough and I made use of what we had. I worked the program to the extent of the its limits.
When I reached art class in middle school, I learned about drawing more complex compositions. For instance, illustrating emotion, music, and feeling.
I never thought that I was a very good illustrator, until I received numerous compliments from teachers on a charcoal piece in 7th grade. The piece was a still-life of a glass duck on a pile of clothing, sitting on a cow bone. Working constantly with the typical still-life, however, I welcomed the glass as a new challenge.
As I began high school, my art had progressed nearly as much as computer and Internet technology. With the ever progressing computer programs came a usefulness I utilized for my homework and my art work.
One of these art programs I utilized was Photoshop, as soon as I began using Photoshop I was amazed. The possibilities that the program had presented had exceeded anything that had ever been created. There were many possibilities to Photoshop that other programs lacked, I spent hours with Photoshop every night learning all of the features.
By my junior year, I had passed all of the advanced art classes and entered double independent study courses. Which meant that I had reached the limits that the school could offer and I began to research my own methods of art and design. One of my independent study courses called for me to present my own art show.
My art show was successful with over 38 pieces, from airbrushed planets and stars to acrylic nature stills. I had offers on a variety of my works of art, but would not sell them. |
My second independent study required me to paint a 45-foot tall space scene that was painted on the walls of Pueblo West High School. The piece turned out amazing, but I was deeply saddened when construction workers decided to tear it down.
At the end of 2000, I won the high school diploma contest, which was to design the inside image of the diploma, a drawing of the high school. My reward was a plaque with a silk version of my drawing and the recognition I received from my school. Unfortunately, the original drawing was mailed to me folded in half.
At the same time that I drew the diploma, I rendered a different version in Autocad on the computer and the school decided to use it as the letterhead for all the documents in the school, mainly on report cards. I was fortune enough to have signed the artwork I provided for the letter head, unlike the drawing for the High School Diplomas.
My interest in computer art programs led to my interest in the internet. I questioned the creation of the internet, how it works, where it began. These were some of the questions that I studied while attending the Colorado State University - Pueblo. While attending, I learned a vast consumption and variety of knowledge through a Mass Communications New Media major and an graphic design minor in Art.
Studying Mass Communications refined my skills to communicate to a mass audience effectively and appropriately. This is extremely important when considering that the Internet is the largest form of mass audience to exist.
I also studied with Dr. Samuel Ebersole, who taught Electronic Media and Interface Media & Design. In these courses, I learned about usability and accessibility when designing interfaces for the Internet.
I studied the Internet in compliance with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which develops internet standards according to accessibility and usability. But, also creates guidelines in which the Internet should be designed towards. Allowing the Internet to evolve in a proper path and form.
In 2003, I was hired as a web designer and graphic designer at ToxicPixels.com. Since working there I have developed an extreme amount of work experience. I have designed large scale commercial web sites and have learned to deal with high pressure clients.
I also designed CrimeStoppersOnline.com, an international web portal that can be used to find more than 1,500 Crime Stopper Organizations.
I have since maintained over 60 web sites at ToxicPixels.com. Which includes: traffic, size, design, and hosting.
I now study on my own schedule about theories and misconceptions about the Internet. Including; usability, accessibility, color and design theory, web optimization, keyword optimization, focal points and eye travel, and interface layout.
The skills that I acquired over the years allow me to view a web page and distinguish flaws in design. Sometimes these flaws are the cause of low revenue, low traffic, and thin repeating visitors. All of this can be determined according to design. I hope one day to be remembered as not just a simple graphic artist or web designer, but as a person who helped shape the ever-so-growing Internet and World Wide Web.
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