Taking the leap...

…because I'm someone who will try everything at least twice - once to see if I like it and a second time to find out how much. With a hyper-mixed, multi-hyphenate career journey, work has never really felt like work to me. It’s all been part of the joy ride. A winding, exploratory road of following my gut, driving it home, and finding time for a bit of soul searching.

I get antsy which is why…

…my wanderingly insatiable curiosity is always on the hunt for a new project, a new brand, or new skill to master. I don’t really believe in your typical New Years resolutions, but prefer to dive into a New Year, New Skill mentality. I opened and owned four businesses, two of which I co-owned, and two on sole proprietorship. None more or less successful than the others, but some with better timing and necessity than others.

I love a good handshake.

Smith Hall is what I like to call my main house studio. It is the centralizing structure for everything that operates as part of it’s cottage businesses. It’s name came from my freshmen year dormitory at Northeastern University - a limitless reminder of the uncomfortable feeling you face when you first meet a new roommate, don’t yet know the people your about to cohabitate with, or the feeling of meeting people you’re about to collaborate with, unknowing that they’re soon to be a close set of friends. I approach my professional life with this mentality. Call it hedonistic, but the honest truth is that handshakes have always turned into effortless connections for me. Any my favorite part of the human experience is to always be respectfully human back.

Past, Present, but mostly Future

Today, I teach at SCAD as a professor in Fashion Marketing, focusing on branding, advertising, art direction, and visual communication design for the Fashion Industry. I run SMITH HALL STUDIO, a thriving, exploratory, multi-disciplinary design studio that focuses on branding, strategy, art direction, editorial, and visual identity work for small businesses in Savannah with a strong arm in interior architecture and design and high-end renovation work with residential and commercial clients.

But no matter what I’m doing or where I end up, design for the sake of good humanness and a driver of design for our own identity autonomy will always be the core of what I teach, build, design, and do.