photo credit: Dan Schimpf
Craig Hoggatt Design
I began my design career roughly twenty years ago at a small start-up in Bloomington, Indiana called ResiteIT. It was the early oughts, web 2.0 was in full effect, and I was designing websites for the multi-family housing industry. The developer/entrepreneur partners at ResiteIT built online solutions such as; web-based virtual tours, rental payment systems, and leasing tools. I designed the websites that housed these digital solutions.
After a couple of years I moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico with my long-time girlfriend while she attended graduate school. There is a saying in Santa Fe that goes; The residents of Santa Fe either have two homes or two jobs. I had two jobs. I worked at a small print broker where I took on everything from designing logos, websites, and ads to layout, typesetting, and pagination for print jobs of all sizes, page number, and print run. I also worked for the local weekly alternative newspaper, The Santa Fe Reporter, as an in-house designer.
Eventually the grad program would end. After spending a long weekend in Denver visiting friends a plan for relocating to The Mile High City began to take shape. While speaking with the Editor of The Reporter I mentioned seeing an ad for an Assistant Art Director at Westword, Denver’s alt-weekly. She happened to have some contacts there and encouraged me to apply, so I did. Before too long we were loading up a moving truck and heading to Denver.
For the next few years I was the Assistant Art Director at Westword. I was responsible for the page layout of the editorial content, the collection or creation of accompanying art, design of all types of promotional materials as well as the design, branding and promotion of large events. I worked with an amazing Art Director, from whom I learned a great deal, but who was also not planning to leave anytime soon. So, when I had the opportunity to move into an Art Director role at a magazine in nearby Boulder, I jumped at the chance.
Rooster Magazine is a monthly four color, glossy, art and culture magazine that is distributed for free in Colorado. When I started at Rooster they were doing a relatively small run of issues that were distributed in and around Boulder. I quickly got to work updating the look and feel of the magazine and developing collaborative relationships with the staff writers, editors, and photographers. I would collaborate with writers on their feature stories to develop concepts for layout and art. I would art direct photoshoots for cover and feature art, coordinate with freelance illustrators and other contributors while also building the magazine for production.
After 6 years in my role as Art Director at Rooster Magazine I decided to move on. I took a role as a Communications Specialist at a non-profit called One Earth Future, whose purpose was to address the underlying issues that lead to violence in the world. The organization runs a diverse group of programs dedicated to such causes as; fisheries management, women’s rights, combating piracy off the coast of Africa, providing employment to former non-governmental combatants, and micro-lending, to name a few. During my short tenure at OEF I contributed to many types of projects from the layout of reports, illustration, photography, motion graphics, video editing, branding and social media. Unfortunately, my time at OEF would be cut short due to an unforeseen yet necessary relocation back to Bloomington.
Before returning I secured a position at Cook Medical, one of the largest employers in the area and joined a global team of creatives in the company’s Marketing and Communications function.
In the last five years at Cook I have been fortunate to work with the diverse group of professionals that make up the in-house creative agency on a wide range of projects. Collaborating on projects with amazing project/product/marketing managers, designers, writers, photographers, videographers, event specialists, digital content creators and project initiators on; event and trade show booths and their accompanying motion graphics, product launches, environmental design, experiential design, UX and UI, 3D design, video production, in-studio graphics, post-production effects and video editing, etc. etc. etc….
My wife, two boys, and I are lucky enough to live on a quite farm just outside of town with a little dog and a couple of kitties. I have a lot of things I enjoy doing outside of work (woodworking, drumming, hiking) but spend most my time these days shuttling my two boys to their many practices, games and meetings, while trying to raise them to be good human beings.