Designed for life [About the Cover]

Artist James Washington, a native of New Jersey, has always had a passion for art. At 15 years old, he remembers buying his first set of pastel chalk for portraits, but soon advanced to airbrushing, and learned more ways to blend colors, lighting, and shadows. By age 17, he was doing signage for local businesses, and at this age he felt he had to make a change. The digital era was coming. Washington purchased a computer and dove into Corel Draw and Photo-Paint. "I just loved the program [Photo- Paint] and found myself doing airbrushing with it and learned to photo-manipulate images and text. I eventually migrated to Adobe Photoshop." After learning the basics of design during his last year of high school in California, he returned to New Jersey. He took a multimedia course at a local college and applied his skills toward freelance work. Graphic and logo design as well as photo retouch assignments for firms and businesses came rather quickly and Web design was a logical next step. Washington\´s works and techniques are briefly discussed.