"Steve is a rare breed — technical genius, results driven, and a fiercely talented creative designer."
Meghan Marks
CMO
About
I've spent more than 20 years making complex ideas look effortless — and helping brands find the clarity they didn't know they were missing.
My work lives at the intersection of strategy, design, and people. I'm equally comfortable sketching brand systems on a whiteboard, presenting to a room of executives, or working alongside a development team to make sure the vision actually ships. Years of hands-on experience with code means I speak the language — I know what's feasible, what's expensive, and how to ask for exactly what I want.
I've led creative at companies across the security, enterprise software, and SaaS space — from Palo Alto Networks and MarkLogic to Torq, where I directed a full rebrand and watched a logo change ripple across every company asset in under 48 hours. Along the way I've built design systems, launched brand portals, mentored teams, and shipped work that moved pipelines.
Where the Ideas Come From
Alongside commercial work, I maintain an active studio practice as a fine artist. The two pursuits are deeply connected — working outside the constraints of a brief, with my hands, in a completely analog medium, is where my most unconventional thinking happens. Those ideas have a way of finding their way back into brand concepts and design solutions that no amount of staring at a screen would have produced.
In the studio I paint Oregon coastlines in soft pastel and shoot fine art photography — chasing the kind of candid light that disappears before you can think about it. The work has found a genuine collector audience: my most recent original painting sold for $3,500. Fine art keeps my eye honest. It strips away the templates and approval chains and asks a simple question: is this actually good? That question travels back to every commercial project I touch.