My name is George McCalman and I’m the principal Creative Director of MCCALMAN.CO. This is my first design blog post. It’s also the last time I’ll be using the word ‘I’ in this journal. I come from an editorial background and was an art director for 16 years before realizing that I had said everything in that field that I needed to. I wanted a new challenge, one that would put me in unfamiliar territory and challenge me to design for myself, unbridled by the restrictions imposed by magazines. My personal sensibilities are minimal and clean, but I loved to push the boundaries of form and color out from convention. I’m always looking for the twist, no matter how subtle or overt. I opened the doors of my studio three years ago. I silently called myself ‘a one man agency’; satisfied that I knew most aspects of front-end design, from conceptualization and strategy to hands-on design and production and everything in between. I knew many art directors and designers but didn’t know many people who were both. My background in the magazine world gave me what I thought was an advantage. Three years later, I’ve been schooled. It is not true that I am a ‘one man agency’, I could not do all of this work by myself. I have a network of talented and amazing collaborators, who are at the top of their respective fields. I am amazed by their dedication and creativity. The creative community I work with has nurtured and emboldened me to rebrand my studio to embrace the partners who I work. We’re looking forward to collaborating with you to solve your design problems.