I was at my fiancée's parents' place last weekend, and they had something very interesting sitting on their coffee table.  In very good condition, it was the 10 year anniversary edition of Rolling Stone.  Rolling Stone magazine was started in 1967, which meant that the magazine I was looking at was printed in 1977 - 32 years ago for those of you keeping count.

I figured I'd have a look and see what layout trends I could pick up from it.  I hadn't jumped that far back in a design-intensive mainstream publication before without being guided to it.  Yes, I have seen examples of design from other eras, I have seen old National Geographics, old newspapers, et cetera, but the nature of advertisements in some of those publications just didn't resonate with me the way the ones in this Rolling Stone magazine did.  There were ads for cars, ads for Technics turntables, and there was an ad for the new Queen album that had just come out.  Earlier in the day I saw a poster in downtown Victoria for a Queen tribute band that was coming to town.  I felt like I was in a time machine. 

I have been asked to take an editorial role here at the GDC National blog, one which I am delighted and honoured to take on. All I intend to do in this first post is introduce myself and explain a bit about what I intend on writing about.

My name is Davin Greenwell. I am a designer / photographer / musician from Victoria, British Columbia.  I have a long standing interest in taking ideas from one media and extending the ideas into others where it makes sense. I got hooked on graphic design in the mid 80s when I came across a program called SuperPaint. I learned the rudimentary principles of the program - in monochrome - and it has provided a basis for understanding more complex graphic programs ever since. It was not a big stretch from there to start using Adobe Photoshop when it came out, and I used it extensively with Illustrator while I worked at a graphic design shop in Victoria in the mid 90s.  I went on to do web management and design at a number of organizations including government and a couple design firms, as well as various contract work under my own name.