Staring down at the glossy cover of his new purchase, Wayne’s interests are more than piqued. The year is 1980-something and 8-year-old Wayne has just bought his first comic book, soon to become increasingly engrossed with the graphic storytelling world. Even at this early age, Wayne can discern and appreciate the expertise and passions of the artists within their highly technical drawing styles. Looking up to giants in the industry like Jack Kirby, John Byrne, Jim Lee, and Alex Ross, Wayne found particular inspiration for illustration. His love for comics never diminished, but rather expanded and evolved to include an appreciation of illustrative work, commercial art and eventually digital art and the web.
Starting his education at LCC in Graphic Design, Wayne was studying at a time when “the web was blooming” and decided that would be a strong path to follow for finding a career. Post graduation, he began working as the executive assistant of a local credit union. He was looking for creative opportunities, and leveraged the skills at his job to start building the career he wanted. He quickly became the credit union’s marketing assistant, a role where he made graphics, posters, advertising and built the company’s website. From the credit union, he moved to a construction management firm’s marketing department, creating 3D pre-visualizations of commercial construction projects as well as maintaining the company’s online presence through a website and burgeoning social media. The construction company worked with Ciesa Design for several marketing systems, and at that time, Wayne gained respect for their work ethic.
After the construction management firm, Wayne transitioned to freelance web work for about a year, after which he was hired by a local marketing firm. Working for six years as their primary web developer, Wayne mentioned greatly enjoying the work. When it came time to transition to his next employer, Wayne hit the job search sites and found a listing for Ciesa Design. He met Lauren and Kevin and they “hit it off almost immediately.” Hired initially as a web developer in March of 2019, Wayne only had a year to find his bearings at Ciesa Design before the work environment would change dramatically.
March of 2020 and suddenly the whole office is online. Wayne knew that getting projects done at home was no issue, he had done that during his time as a freelancer. However, it begged the question of how effectively the team could work together from home. Well, five years later and it is proven to be a non-issue. Wayne included that even now “working from home is not a problem with us communicating and creating together.” The office still works-from-home two days a week; Wayne relishes those days, enjoying the quiet space at home where he can find his rhythm and feels extra productive.
While he enjoys his work days at home, Wayne admitted that one of his favorite parts about working at Ciesa Design is the office environment. He loves the colors and creativity everywhere, noting that one “can’t walk three feet without seeing a poster or some sort of inspiration.” Almost every wall is filled with large-scale commercial, non-commercial, and house made posters and art, as well as Lauren’s curated antique sign collection, which sit neatly on the walls wherever the posters allow room. Wayne mentioned especially enjoying the Board of Water and Light Chili Cook Off posters hanging outside his office door, admiring the cohesive style and high production value maintained throughout the series.
Wayne’s favorite projects from his Ciesa Design portfolio come largely from his work with the MSU Museum. Initially hired to rebuild the MSU Museum website, Wayne felt great success in the final style and aesthetic for the site that the Ciesa team had collectively developed. He enjoyed drawing the distinction between MSU branding and MSU Museum branding, despite their many similarities. “I think we found a good balance between what said ‘MSU’ versus what said ‘MSU Museum.’ After the successful web project, MSU Museum contacted us to do the visualization of their 2025 remodel projects (which just completed this January!). Returning to his days as a 3D pre-viz artist, Wayne created 3D visualizations of two museum wings to help give stakeholders an idea of what it could become. To ensure the rendering was as close as possible to the new space, Wayne and Kevin went down to the museum and measured the floorplan in-person. The project began with a loose design concept, allowing Wayne to work closely with the client to find a successful final design direction. He enjoyed the close collaboration, and found it very interesting to build a concept directly with the client while simultaneously producing the design.
On the walls at home, Wayne hangs paintings and illustrations from talented artists. His children’s masterworks are interspersed with work from other inspiring creatives such as Pendleton Ward of Adventure Time, Eastman and Laird’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse. In his leisure, he enjoys spending time with his family, as well as pursuing his personal artistic interests. His current passion is the painting of scale models from RPG tabletop games, an expression of his love of effective world building and character design born from his early enjoyment of comic books and visual storytelling.