My name is Maurice Woods and I am a graphic designer.
Design for me accumulates from a lot of different places. Design is really about a process of
thinking creatively and critically about how to solve something in a way that not only
makes sense to people but produces a solution to a problem.
I was born in Richmond, California, that's where I am from and I was always tall and
that was you know a one of the things in my neighborhood that everyone was doing was sports
and music. Once I got into basketball, you know, I started
growing a lot more and I was a lot taller than everybody else so it became sort of a
more of a viable career option for me. It allowed me to get a scholarship to play
basketball at the University of Washington. And, through that scholarship at the University
of Washington, that's how I got exposed to design.
I had a experienced two years playing basketball that I came to the realization that I was
probably not going to make it to the NBA. Me and my mother we were sitting down and
I was telling her about how I didn't know what I wanted to do and we're searching through
different majors and she said, "What about graphic design? You used to like to draw when
you were a kid." And I did used to like to draw. So I ended
up going back to graduate school and that's really how I transitioned from basketball
to graphic design. I generally work in both mediums. Both uh..
uh.. handwritten stuff - drawing and then also software like Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, InDesign.
All those different programs often times, specially when I'm working in print I try
to get away from the computer and I end up doing a lot of sketching. Sketching is really
the best way to develop ideas. They think that the computer can enhance their creativity
and it's faster and it's more efficient. I just find that the best ideas come when you're
able to sit down and you're able to sketch and sketch a lot of different things. And
you get ideas on the table and the computer is really a tool for manifesting those ideas.
The Inneract Project specifically is a program that, um, I started in 2004. The premise behind
the program is simply put to educate young people in the community about careers in design.
What we try to do, uh, with this program very hard is to give young people a sense of what
it means to be a designer and how designers can use their skills in this world.
"How long did it take you to do that?" "A long time. We were just doodling that's
all." "Not very long..."
"And you too?" "Let me see yours!"
"No" Also let them see and feel like what it feels
like to be on a college campus which is really important, specially for middle school kids
that are all sort of from underpriviledged areas.
One of the skills that helped me from basketball that I took in design was teamwork. I'm used
to being able to be on teams that where there is a lot of compromise that needs to be made
and on teams where you're working on designs together we are all submitting certain things
and we're getting feedback. You need to be flexible.
I want to be remembered for giving back to the community. Giving back to young people...
and being able to use the skills that I have to develop a young person to be better.
I get more joy out of that than anything project I work on.