WHY VACUUMING FRONT YARDS LEADS TO GREAT DESIGN... In 1995, when I was twenty-one and living in Pennsylvania, I had a summer job as a personal assistant for a fairly wealthy, persnickety man in his fifties who had lost his license for a year due to a DWI charge. I drove him to job sites (he was a real estate broker), hardware stores, and mandatory AA meetings. Besides chauffeuring, I also took care of his estate. Outdoors, I balanced on extremely tall ladders to paint his entire house, toiled in a vegetable garden, helped install sliding glass doors, made repairs to his greenhouse, and vacuumed—yes, vacuumed—his front yard. I pulled teeny-tiny weeds, one-by-one, out of the landscaped river stones. I gathered twigs in bundles, extracted wilted flowers, and mowed the lawn in patterns. Indoors, I Windexed every window until not one smudge of streak was visible and polished the wood floors till every grain could be distinguished and the house smelled of oil and wax. Most satisfying, however, was detailing his gleaming, pearl white 1986 Jaguar XJ6. I used a thistle brush to scrub in between the wheel spokes until they were blinding. I poured leather cleaner on my hands to work into the seats to keep them in great condition. I wrapped a small cloth around my fingers to tediously buff the vanes on the grill. After detailing and washing, instead of wiping the vehicle dry with a towel, which would leave water marks and lint, I drove it through the hilly roads of King of Prussia and around Valley Forge so the water would be whisked from the surface at 45mph. What I learned at this job exemplifies and has become the foundation of who I am as a designer: CREATIVE // HIGHLY-ORGANIZED // DEDICATED // CONSCIENTIOUS // PATIENT // APPRECIATIVE // CURIOUS // AND EXTREMELY, EXTREMELY DETAIL-ORIENTED.
Graphic designer,

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
The Sutter Group
JWG Associates, Inc