Garrett Brooks is a creative director, board director, award-winning freelance web/graphic designer, and traditional artist near Olympia in Washington State. Graduating cum laude from Pacific Lutheran University's School of Arts and Communication (SOAC) in 2014 with his BFA in Graphic Design, he's currently working with a wide range of people, businesses, and institutions around the globe. In 2022, the national Community College Humanities Association awarded him their Distinguished Service Award for "exceptional leadership in publications design." Guided by a love of creativity and a passionate cross-disciplinary philosophy of design, he's long explored the many facets of artistic creativity; from graphic design to web design, and digital photography to traditional art such as graphite, ink, and oil, Creativity has struck him as light has a prism.
Projects
Now serving as the program's Creative Director, since 2014 he has worked with PLU's luminary MFA in Creative Writing program—The Rainier Writing Workshop (RWW)—as a webmaster, web designer, brand designer, and graphic designer for the community hub and magazine publication Soundings. Similarly, since 2016, he has worked as a print designer for the national Community College Humanities Association (CCHA), rebranding and publishing their scholarly Community College Humanities Review with Sydney Elliott and Dan Koperski, and designing materials for their National Conference. As noted above, the CCHA awarded him their Distinguished Service Award for "exceptional leadership in publications design." Also with Sydney, Garrett is a board member and Creative Director for Fireweed: Poetry of Oregon—a resurrected and rebranded 30-year-old nonprofit journal dedicated to supporting local Oregon poets.
As a designer he works with numerous professors, authors, businesses, and institutions local and afar—having included those like Rick Barot, Smiling Web Design, the PARC Foundation of Thurston County, Golden Dissertations, Tillamook Bay Community College, and Art for Kids School.
Classes & Talks
Garrett regularly teaches a class at RWW: "Writers on the Web: Creating a Powerful Presence Online." Topics include developing your online identity, crafting a powerful brand, and professionally establishing yourself across all platforms. Encompassing professional websites and social media, this class also delves into behavioral psychology on the internet and strategies for a healthy life online.
At PLU, he's also lectured on web design for publishers, detailing the do's and don'ts of building a book-dedicated website. Likewise, Garrett has repeatedly been a guest lecturer at Tillamook Bay Community College (TBCC), exploring communication with students through the lens of being a creative director and multimedia designer—with a special emphasis on practical professional advice and an interdisciplinary philosophy of Art and Communication.
Technical Skills
He is proficient in the professional design programs Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign, using them in nearly every project, while he is proficient in under-the-hood HTML and CSS coding with web work, specializing in client-centered management platforms like WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, and Beaver Builder—platforms which enable users to easily control their own content and take charge of their presence online. Likewise, for print works he's extensively used publishing platforms like CreateSpace, Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), and Blurb, as well as local printers, and is intricately familiar with the complicated ins-and-outs of physical printing.
Art & Design
An international competitor, award-winner, and seller, Garrett has produced a wide array of art and has had his work showcased in number of exhibitions. Viewing art and design as intimately and archetypically Divine, he seeks to find the almost ethereal element that gives a subject its unique soul, innate magic, and resonant identity. Much of this involves an exploration of shapes, proportions, ratios, and patterns through a variety of mediums. With design, especially, his drive is most often toward the elegance of simplicity: a beauty of proficiency. For more information, please visit the Connect page.
Projects
Now serving as the program's Creative Director, since 2014 he has worked with PLU's luminary MFA in Creative Writing program—The Rainier Writing Workshop (RWW)—as a webmaster, web designer, brand designer, and graphic designer for the community hub and magazine publication Soundings. Similarly, since 2016, he has worked as a print designer for the national Community College Humanities Association (CCHA), rebranding and publishing their scholarly Community College Humanities Review with Sydney Elliott and Dan Koperski, and designing materials for their National Conference. As noted above, the CCHA awarded him their Distinguished Service Award for "exceptional leadership in publications design." Garrett is also a board member and Creative Director for Fireweed: Poetry of Oregon—a resurrected and rebranded 30-year-old nonprofit journal dedicated to supporting local Oregon poets.
As a designer he works with numerous professors, authors, and businesses local and afar—having included those like Rick Barot, Smiling Web Design, the PARC Foundation of Thurston County, and Art For Kids School.
Classes
Garrett regularly teaches a summer residency class at RWW: "Building Your Website: A Writer's Guide to Creating a Powerful Presence Online." Topics include the process of developing your online identity and crafting a powerful brand. Encompassing professional websites and social media, this class also delves into behavioral psychology on the internet and strategies for a healthy life online.
Technical Skills
He is proficient in the professional design programs Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign, using them in nearly every project, while he is proficient in under-the-hood HTML and CSS coding with web work, specializing in client-centered management platforms like WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, and Beaver Builder—platforms which enable users to easily control their own content and take charge of their presence online. Likewise, for print works he's extensively used publishing platforms like CreateSpace, Amazon Kindle Publishing (KDP), and Blurb, as well as local printers, and is intricately familiar with the complicated ins-and-outs of physical printing.
Art & Design
An international competitor, award-winner, and seller, Garrett has produced a wide array of art and has had his work showcased in number of exhibitions. Viewing art and design as intimately and archetypically Divine, he seeks to find the almost ethereal element that gives a subject its unique soul, innate magic, and resonant identity. Much of this involves an exploration of shapes, proportions, ratios, and patterns through a variety of mediums. With design, especially, his drive is most often toward the elegance of simplicity: a beauty of proficiency. For more information, please visit the Connect page.