About Me

Hello, my name is Richard Kessinger and welcome to my website. Here you can find just a sampling of what I have to offer as a graphic artist. Some of my earliest memories involve scribbling in my “handy dandy notebooks” my aunt would make and absorbing as much pop culture as I could get. Over 10 years later I began working with the Adobe Creative Suite in high school after signing up for a digital photography course and I knew this is how I would create a future for myself.

For my senior project I worked with the Clinton County Arts Council and Keystone Central School District elementary art teachers to organize the first ever KCSD elementary art exhibition. Upon graduation I would attend Lock Haven University for graphic design, further strengthening my comprehension of the Adobe Creative Suite and learning the fundamentals of graphic design. In between working my retail job and studies, I would assist in the set-up and takedown of various art shows hosted in the Sloan Fine Arts building and do various other odd jobs for the art professors. In May of 2018 I would receive my Bachelor of Fine Arts and put on my graduating senior show displaying my first graphic series: Hershey Through the Twentieth Century.

It would be a year later when I would put my graphic skills to the biggest test yet when I joined the Lock Haven Express newspaper staff as I spent the following year doing graphics and layout as design editor while also writing the occasional feature. So, there you have it. That’s everything you need to know about my history in the graphic arts. Why not check out my portfolio or read about my approach to design below? If you'd like to contact me, see the information in the header. I think you’ll be impressed with what I have to offer.

Artist Statement

One very important thing I have learned in my time in college comes from Steve Krug who specializes in web-based communication, and he makes it a rule to display information in a manner that is easy to follow. I strive to do so when I design.

I gravitate more towards print design above other forms of art because there’s much less worry about the immediate expiration or inevitable deterioration of one's own materials and tools over time. That isn’t to say today’s technology doesn’t become obsolete, but things such as software updates and new hardware allow the tools of the trade to evolve in a drastically different way than say the tools used to create the works of the renaissance. Working digitally makes work much more preservable and thus is much easier to alter and change as needed. It makes it easier to create back-ups and make small alterations to multiple files and see the various possibilities for how to improve the work with less of a worry of making a change you cannot undo.

While I try not to allow myself to become isolated by working in any one particular style, I typically lean more toward vector-based forms because the resultant images are smoother and cleaner looking than those of the pixel based raster format. Of course, that style may not always be appropriate for every project so I prefer to apply that in a case by case basis. One thing I have discovered in recent years is that I suffer from "Blank Canvas Syndrome," a term coined by book cover designer Chip Kidd, whose work you may have seen in the famous iconography in the Jurassic Park franchise. Kidd and I share a very similar mindset in that we are both not so much interested in making art for art's sake, but rather being given an assignment and making something more practical.

Of course working in as a graphic designer means there is no particular theme or concept that is shared throughout all of my work. I take comfort in the fact that when it comes to print design more than most other mediums, there is always a target demographic or specific audience to aim for. If one is working on a painting or sculpture there isn’t any guarantee that what you’re creating will appeal to the masses, however in today's world we are constantly exposed to media and advertising, so whether they like it or not someone will be exposed to print design daily. Working digitally provides the best opportunity for me to get my work out there and assist in using my skills to solve design problems visually.