Born in Columbus, Indiana to Norma and Larry Allen, I was the third son of four. I have to thank my mother and father for being amazing parents. I am blessed. Thank you both.
80's
I grew up in the 80’s with MTV, Max Headroom, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, Guns N’ Roses, Mötley Crüe, Madonna, to name a few. When I wasn’t playing travel hockey or travel soccer I was very likely riding my Mongoose BMX bike on dirt trails in the woods or trying to get air on my friends quarter pipe. Thankfully I never got hurt.
Athletics & Art
I was an athlete first (travel hockey and travel soccer), then an artist and then a student. I always loved to draw. My father taught me to draw and we use to draw P-40E Warhawk airplanes (Flying Tigers) together. I loved those planes as a kid. I also loved BMX so much that I kept a notebook and drew the logos of all the brands I liked (Haro, GT, DiamondBack, Skyway, etc..) I was always drawing when I was not playing sports or outside playing with my brothers.
Atari
The next big thing to impact my life was video games. Thank you Atari for bringing the video game experience into the home. With two older brothers I got to watch more than I got to play but in time I got my time. Next came the Commodore 64. It sat on a desk and I had no idea what it was or what it could do. Curiosity got the best of me and I began learning how to program things to happen on the screen. Still to this day have no idea what I was doing but it was new and interesting to me then.
VCD
When I graduated high school I did not know what I wanted to do for a career. I attended The Ohio State University for two years before transferring to Kent State University to study Visual Communication Design. Even then I did not realize how it was a perfect fit for me. My love for art, design and technology all came together then. Reflecting on my interests, I am lucky to do what I love. I have barely worked a day in my life.
Current
I currently work at Innis Maggiore Group, Inc. and am the creative director of the web, email marketing and interactive team. I’ve been with Innis Maggiore since 2007 and work with some very talented people. I have been fortunate enough to have received 30+ design awards working with clients in banking, business to business, consumer, financial, food service, insurance and medical. The awards received were for web design, email marketing design, mobile design and web-based app design. It takes a complete team to create award winning work.
