No Moss Brands

09/21/2025

And that’s a wrap.

Phoenix Design Week: Rooted has come to an end.

Had a front row of GCU students present and former, as well as lots of new faces.

My favorite keynote - Laura Worthington, a typeface designer. Never met one before. She has amazing handskills. Her fonts are fantastic.

My favorite breakout - Me.

I mean, if I don’t toot my own horn who will!

Missed Sheila Schumacher who introduced me to this conference.

Thanks for hanging out with me Haley Stoltz.

Awesome to meet you irl Jordan Walsh and Patience Walton. Too many to list.

09/08/2025

How does one who likes to talk "talk"; in front of audiences who love to hear her speak!

I'll be hosting a breakout session - Modern Brands for a Modern World; How to be Inclusive without being Offensive in the 21st Century. Clearly y'all need to be reminded how to design authentic campaigns in today's "mixed agendas" world!

My session is on Day 2, after lunch. Prepare to learn how to connect with audiences that do not at all look like you!

The PHXDW Conference is the main event during Phoenix Design Week — a two-day industry conference for graphic designers, illustrators, writers, UI/UX designers, content managers, marketing professionals and people who work with them. For 2025, we're celebrating this 17th annual PHXDW at Phoenix Convention Center for two full days of creative jumpstarts, workshops and friendship. With a theme of "Rooted" we invite you to dig deep — to return to your roots as a designer, reconnect with your craft, find common ground with your community, and grow together.

See conference link in comments.

SIGN UP TODAY!

06/28/2023

Branding is everywhere, and unless you are a business owner or in marketing, you most likely don't notice the finer things in life I notice.

Here's an example of the things I observed on a visit to a new doctor's office. All of these things set the stage for the experience.

Read to learn more...

Branding is a funny thing! Branding, customer experience 0 Branding is a funny thing. Those who are not branders automatically start thinking about the visual representation of the company, like logos, typography, and color palette. It shouldn’t be a surprise to any professional that those are not...

06/19/2023

There’s no reason to be colorblind when there are agencies run by Blacks, like mine.

The fact is, white creative teams are not affective at designing for people who don’t look like themselves. There are many many blind spots.

Why struggle, consult with those who are Black 24/7 and avoid being offensive.

This is offensive…

The organization putting together Greenville's Juneteenth celebration initially defended the inclusion citing a spirit of unity, but later issued an apology.

06/15/2023

You know what’s on my mind FB?

“In 2021 alone, the maternal mortality rate for Black women was 69.9 deaths per 100,000 live births, which is 2.6 times the rate for White women, at 26.6 per 100,000.”

The idea that of developed nations the U.S. has the highest maternal morbidity rate of all is appalling.

Read the entire article…

04:15 - Source: CNN VIDEO: Two women die each day from childbirth or pregnancy CNN — American track and field champion Tori Bowie, who won gold, silver and bronze medals in the 2016 Olympic Games, died of pregnancy complications that may have included eclampsia, according to an autopsy report. Bow...

06/15/2023

Your perception of the moments in your life, people and events changes over time, and here’s a terrific example.

This individual was MY professor during my exercise science degree years. My perception at the time, damn, Jerry’s old and weak, possibly not living much longer.

Which is hysterical bc he was only 54ish at the time. I’m now a professor and older than he was at the time. Yet I see myself as young and vibrant, period. Not young and vibrant “for my age”!

He felt like a fatherly figure and had a wicked, yet odd, sense of humor. My kinda person. He also seemed to find me entertaining (my goal in life)!

The legend he was at the time included him having been a former, and successful men’s college basketball coach. Evidently he was passed his prime at 5Oish and no longer coached. 🤷‍♀️

He also invented a basketball hoop rim tension guide that keep ALL hoops the exact same eliminating home court advantage tinkering. 🏀

Of course, as a 20 year old, I assumed his career was almost over. I was so wrong. Perceptions change.

He went on to do great things at Gonzaga who many know has had an amazing men’s basketball program for decades.

Rest in peace Professor Krause…your impact was felt deeply.

Krause spent 20 years at Gonzaga, most notably as the Director of Basketball Operations.

06/14/2023

In 2018, I developed this infographic for a conference in Tucson. I updated it today as part of my preparation for my book.

This is a visual representation of my last forty years and the twists and turns, triumphs and tribulations!

Check it out on my website...https://bit.ly/nmb_life_path

06/01/2023

If you ask any of my current or former college students, they’d agree how much I despise typos and spelling errors.

I’ve used all sorts of methods to get these future designers to one be more observant, and two to care about these details.

One semester I threatened to give them a zero on the mechanics of writing section of the rubric if I found an error in their headlines. For Pete’s sake, your headline is the largest piece of copy on a page. That’d be 15 points out of 100 in some cases.

Recently I’ve started joking with them. Reminding them that spell check is a free tool. Or, that it’s acceptable to use spell check not once, not twice, but as many times as possible until you’re confident you are correct.

Of course, I’ve even done the “back in my day” we actually had to know how to spell and use a dictionary if we weren’t sure. So much so that the cover of the dictionary I carried with me was torn off. One day I flipped through the book and some pages fluttered to the floor. That’s how crucial a dictionary was in the olden days.

It’s a funny conversation to have the same day as the Scripps National Spelling Bee competition.

Regardless, can someone pleeeeeeaaaaase start actually caring about spelling again?!? Pleeeeaaaase?!?

More than 600 stoles with the misspelling were distributed to seniors – many of which crossed the graduation stage before noticing the mistake.

05/26/2023

How does this happen? It happens because only 3% of all graphic designers are Black.

It happens because those people responsible for the creative team, the creative director, only 3% are Black.

And those responsible for the entire company’s marketing, the CMO, is mostly white males.

It also happens because nobody took the time to reflect and consider the real purpose of Juneteenth.

I can tell you right now, this isn’t happening on my watch with my team. Regardless of the pressure from above. No means no.

The organization putting together Greenville's Juneteenth celebration initially defended the inclusion citing a spirit of unity, but later issued an apology.

04/29/2023

Only 7% of all physicians are Black in the U.S. Those numbers go down significantly by specialties. Yet, health outcome is improved when Black patients are treated by Black doctors. Facts.

Black people make up 13% of the U.S. population, but Black doctors are not equally represented.

04/27/2023

Black women are smarter and more educated than you, but make .58 cents to the white mans dollar amounting to a loss of almost a million dollars over our lifetime.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

This is our U.S. value system at play, complete with racism and sexism, and eventually ageism.

In case you’re wondering why we’re angry!

New studies show Black women have been receiving degrees at a higher rate for years.