Ants in my head. Nuances on paper.

This is kind of like an ant colony. Actually, it's nothing like an ant colony.

This blog is meant to be an outlet for ideas, ants in my head that should be written down for my own future reference.

I'm a 28 year old designer and photographer based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Currently working freelance and loving the freedom, not so much the financial instability. And so here's a bit more about me…

When I was a kid, I was never interested in photography, much less design. Finger painting was a major thing for me, but it never really amounted to much. I can't draw for the life of me. I was, on the other hand, very interested in music. Both my parents would play lots of music. Loudly, I might add. And so when the time came to choose a profession, I went with music. (I had —barely— learned to play the guitar sometime around seventh grade.)

For more reasons than I care to outline in this here 'about' page, music simply didn't pan out for me. I was a really crappy guitarrist anyway, and what little singing I could muster went down the drain the day I started smoking on a daily basis. But then photography struck a chord (I swear that pun is not intended). So I took a basic photography class, and then took two more classes (neither of which I'd call 'advanced', really). I also started working with local photographers, assisting them in all kinds of shoots (some of which were, in fact, very much like taking 'advanced' classes, really).

And then I discovered Anton Corbijn .

I realized that, while photography was something I wanted to do full time, I was attracted to design as a vehicle for presenting an image. Corbijn's work as a designer inspired me, and soon enough I managed to convince a local band to let me design the album cover for their third album.

Some years pass. I work for photographer Werner Segarra as a studio manager and retouching/pre-press assistant. Shop closes, get a job with one of his main clients (local fashion magazine DeModa). That shop closes as well. Get a job as a designer at local newspaper (Primera Hora , which had owned DeModa). Three years into that gig, decide to go freelance. Laying out the same five pages every day just wasn't cutting it for me anymore. Freelance has been good and bad, ups and downs. Get in touch with a local designer that has helped me put things in perspective. Currently working some projects with him. He has tons of those. Projects, I mean.

Somewhere along the way I discovered Storm Thorgerson , Daido Moriyama and David Carson , among others. Then I realized photography and design were, in many respects, the very same thing.

And tonight (somewhere between Saturday Nov. 11 and Sunday Nov. 12 2006) I couldn't sleep. So I decided this stagnant, abandoned piece of blog needs more than a facelift. It needs a new direction. Erased all the personal posts. "Ye shall now be a design blog," I say. And so now my ants have a website.

The internet is truly a wonderful thing when imaginary ants that represent ideas get to speak their minds. Even more so when they don't really have minds, because they're not really real. But metaphors are fun. They can be stupid, but they're fun nonetheless. And this is when I let the ants out.