Hi, I’m Greg Schumsky- A designer (web, graphic, product), animator, video producer, manager, photographer, illustrator, user experience designer and general all around nice guy. My background covers over 25 years experience in design work.

My inspirations for becoming a designer were Walt Disney and Jim Henson (the man behind the Muppets). When I was 4 or so I remember two of my favorite shows – Disney’s Wonderful World of Color and once in a while a night time special with the Muppets. Disney’s shows were intriguing to me, not just for the animation, but watching Walt Disney introduce the show, as well as once in a while showing something from behind the scenes at Disney, such as an Imagineer working on audio animatronics for a new attraction (and that’s one reason I love robotics). Then my parents took my two brothers and I to Disneyland. I still remember getting my picture taken with a man and woman astronaut in Tomorrowland.  As I mentioned, Jim Henson and the Muppets were also an inspiration, and when I was 6, my older brother and I would put on puppet shows for family and friends with our Muppets- I was always Kermit the Frog (and I do a pretty mean Kermit impression – sometimes without trying).

When I was 5, I learned to read sheet music and began playing the piano, but that didn’t last long once my dad let me use his 8mm movie camera. It felt natural in my hands, and soon I was making films with the neighbor kids, including stop-motion (called Pixelation) invisible race car driving across the lawn, and learned (by accident) the magic of backwinding and double exposing the film. I knew in my heart that someday I wanted to work for Disney, whether it was making films or designing new attractions (there was no internet so I couldn’t imagine someday there would be a Disney website…).

I began working at the age of 14 as a video editor for San Diego’s only real-estate television show “TV Open House”, way before there was ever HGTV, but had a love for graphic design and took some classes in that as well as industrial design in high school. I eventually studied architecture and industrial design in college. I also had a love for photography as well. I went on eventually to do all sorts of creative related work, from video production (shooting, editing, some producing), to interactive multimedia, animation, silk-screening, technical illustration, designs for t-shirts, logos, web work, motion graphics, product design, sound engineering for a local commercial studio, sound recording on a feature film, producing a commercial video game…and so on.

Funny thing though, as my career path, which I thought would lead into filmmaking and animation (skills I had learned or was natural at), wound it’s way through working in the web, and next thing I know people are saying I’m a user experience designer. I’m guessing that my experience with storytelling, product design, as well as the early years in multimedia and then the web just lead to that. There wasn’t anything such as classes in Human Computer Interaction, or usability, or anything called user-centered design. Everyone back then had to just figure out what worked and what didn’t, and more so, make things fun and an overall good to great experience for clients and users. It’s just how it was.

So, I hope you get something from my comments and musings on design, whether it’s cool architecture, graphics, products, video games, or anything else that intrigues and inspires me.

If you want to get a hold of me, you can email me at gsdesign@cox.net.