Best Graphic Designer Near Me
It’s so hard for me to believe it but it’s been TWO years since my last blog post. It’s insane how fast time goes when you are busy and boy oh boy have I been busy. In the last 2 years, I’ve built countless websites, designed dozens of logos, thousands of business cards and so so much more.
I’ve also become much more active on Linkedin (with little or no results) and Instagram, again not much panning out there but at least I’m having fun, BUT enough about what I’ve been doing. How about I talk a bit about my background?
Since 1988 I’ve been working in Marketing and publishing as a graphic designer and graphic artist. Yes, there is a difference. Ask me to write a post about it and maybe I will. So way back in 1988, I would for a small design studio in Red Bank, NJ where I designed signs, plagues, and brochures for the companies biggest client; AT&T also know as Ma-Bell at the time. I was hired for my knowledge of an app called Aldus Illustrator. Aldus was later bought by Adobe. So I’ve been using Illustrator and Photoshop longer then Adobe has.
A few years later I started working for Cahners Publishing in New York City. At the time Cahners was the third largest publishing company in the world, and I was the Senior Art Director for the medical division. I love the job and the respect I achieved there. While there I worked on numerous publications, won several design awards and built the company’s first website in 1994(?).
Having developed an amazing portfolio of print and “interactive” (that’s what they called it back then) designs and was able to advance my career and venture out into the arena I have always coveted; Advertising. I quickly join a small advertising agency in Holmdel, NJ where our big clients were Johnson & Johnson, Loreal Makeup, and Philips Lighting. I was Designing graphics for everything from packaging, coupon, print ads and more. It was a defining moment for me to see my work in the newspapers, on TV and on the shelves of major retailers across the country.
In the late 1990’s I jumped onto the internet bandwagon before it left the station. I went to work as Creative Director for a start-up that later became the fastest growing real estate company in American history. in four short years, we went from 60 employees to over 2,000 and I was extremely proud to be in charge of the marketing. Our website won several awards, my designs blanketed the NY tri-state area in the Newspaper, on TV, over 200 Bill Boards per quarter. This was one of the most exciting times in my life but sadly it did not last. A large investment firm from the UK bought us out and let me go when they moved the marketing department to London. Shortly thereafter the company failed.
Having been married for close to ten years I agreed with my wife to start a family. So I took a job working for a MedEd company in Princeton, NJ. The pace was much more relaxed there even though the clients were the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world. Once again I was doing medical advertising for names like Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Novo Nordisk.
In 2008 I broke out on my own and started my own design studio: The Graphic Guy LLC. Over the years my clients have ranged from national retailors: Syms Clothing, and Filene’s Basement, to large realtors: Wiechert Corp, mayor manufactures: Panasonic, Motorola as well as respected institutions: organizations at Columbia Law School, and my biggest client ever Citibank. For 7 years I produced Citibank’s Market Access, a 90-page interactive publication that was translated into a number of languages and sent to over 80 countries around the world.
These days the bulk of my business is local businesses. I design logos and websites for small to mid-size companies in the Monmouth County area. Of course, I still freelance for some larger corporations from time to time. You know when they need something really stellar they call me.
Well, that’s my career in a nutshell. I hope you joined reading it as much I enjoyed living it. Stay tuned for more. I left out all the juicy stuff for future blog posts. Hopefully, I won’t take 2 more years to make my next post.
Thank you,
Robert Hazelrigg
Lead Creative
The Graphics Guy
126 Whalepond Rd.
West Long Branch, NJ 07764
732-513-6807
[email protected]
Creating more business for your business
