Style Contest Judge: Douglas Beach

Since we've wrapped up our interview series with the winners of The Style Contest, we're beginning a new series with the contest judges. Today we're speaking with Douglas Beach from Adobe. Check back every week for a new interview.

Q: Tell us about your design background. What motivated you to get into design?

I was always interested in communications and publishing. In that vein I studied illustration, photography and journalism. While in journalism school I worked as a designer at a weekly newspaper. Design came more naturally to me than writing, so I ended up going in that direction. I think the immediacy of doing your work and seeing it published the next day was very satisfying. I still try to write occasionally, but I only have the brain capacity to serve one muse.

Q: What was your favorite theme from The Style Contest, and why?

I had Magic Paper as the top score. I liked the overall aesthetic, the design touches were well done and I felt it could be used for a wide range of subjects.

Q: What did you think of the overall winner, The Late Show? Why was it the best design out of all the category winners?

I liked it because the design was thorough. The theme was carried through in all the details. It was executed well and got to the point.

Q: Tell us about your current design work and projects.

At my day job (Adobe) we're gearing up for the next Creative Suite launch. I'm in charge of art directing the packaging and collateral associated with a large portion of the products.

Otherwise I'm working on an ongoing series of vignettes for the Web focusing on iconic photographers with my wife, who is a photojournalist. We're gearing up to do another round of interviews in the near future.

I also do quite a bit of freelance work, most notably illustration and interactive design for npr.org.

Q: Where do you find design inspiration?

Everywhere. Travel, food, landscape, art, film, literature. I'm totally influenced by what I see every day.

Don't forget to check out all of the great Style Contest designs for Movable Type, TypePad, and LiveJournal which are now archived at The Style Archive.