Aaron Draplin

About

Hailing from Detroit, Aaron Draplin is a self-taught graphic designer who discovered his talent during a snowboarding stint at the age of 19. After spending two years on the slopes reading a bunch of books about design, he scored his first design gig creating snowboard graphics, marking the beginning of a prolific career in design.
After graduating from Minneapolis College of Art and Design in April 2000, Aaron accepted an art-director position at SNOWBOARD Magazine. He moved to what he called Southern California and worked on 23 issues of the magazine. While he speaks negatively about the time he spent at the magazine, he did impressive work there, and received the award for Art Director of the Year from Primedia in 2000. In April 2002, he accepted a Senior Designer position offered to him by the Cinco Design Office without hesitation, and then returned to Portland, Oregon. After two years at Cinco, he went solo.

DRAPLIN DESIGN CO.

Aaron founded the Draplin Design Co. in the fall of 2004. Working for a studio was a good environment to learn in, but that for him, it quickly became claustrophobic. He would go home and work on his personal projects, which ended up making him more money than his job at Cinco, and so he decided to go out on his own.

He’s proud to report that he’s managed to “keep everything out of the red.” Under their list of services featured on their website, the DDC does a wide array of services, including graphic design, friendship, art directing, and bounty hunting. The company’s mission statement is simple: “Work hard. Do good work. For good people.” I think that they’ve upheld this throughout the years, as some of the companies they’ve worked for include the Obama Administration, Burton Snowboards, and Patagonia.

Despite having some big-name companies in his repertoire, Draplin has kept his company small. It’s more comfortable, he says. He doesn’t want to drag himself to a job that he “only sorta likes.” He says that he’s satisfied with staying small and that a bigger business, doesn’t mean a better business. It’s clear that Draplin puts passion into his work, and isn’t in it for any reason besides making good work.

Source: https://www.canva.com/