Hello. My name is Pat Virzi, and I’ve been fascinated by typography since my first bowl of Alpha-Bits way back in the 20th century. Soon after I ate that first overly-sweet breakfast spoonful, I began my ongoing adventures with graphic design. (I don’t remember the exact moment, but it might have been when I tumped over that very same bowl of cereal on the tablecloth).

In 1978, I became a professional graphic designer. I’ve worked in print and publishing ever since the first magic moment when I decided that this graphic element went here, and that one went there on the page and I got a paycheck for doing it!

I certainly don’t miss rubber cement, rubylith, or stripping. (Stripping up *negatives*. Get your mind out of the gutter between the columns.) Tools like the collective components of Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 just beat the flinders out of what I used to do on a Compugraphic EditWriter, even the one with the MCPO option. I still have a certain nostalgia for the sound that the EditWriter 7500 used to make when the lenses made that chunk-chunk-chunking noise, changing font sizes while imaging a job… *sigh*

Let’s set my hardware obsessions aside for a moment. Let’s talk about “magic.”

I’ve heard others tell me that what I do is magic. I think that’s because I rarely stop to explain just what’s in my bag of design tricks — I just tap the keyboard, wave the mouse and tablet pen, cut and paste, import, export, thrust my hand waaaay into the deep dark designer hat and pull out a shiny PDF which flutters away to its new home. Voila!

But behind the green curtain (and my bifocals), here’s what’s happening…

I strive to make my mission-critical designs achieve what I call (for lack of a better term) “emergent synergy”. Each element should work together as a cohesive part of the entire piece *and* must puzzle-fit together to convey a message which is both what the client requested *and* what you thought the client’s customers would be most receptive to. At the same time, the piece must be visually pleasing, and it must have a logical graphic flow or progression towards the optimal conclusion/message (which is usually “Buy me! Buy me!”).

[You know, thirty years ago I would have used an entire bottle of white-out while formulating that previous paragraph. I *love* this technology.)

What else am I passionate about? Speculative fiction, and sf fanzine publishing. (Mimeographs and spirit duplicators. The pungent odor of fresh correction fluid in the morning, aaaah.) Family. Friends. Photography. Creativity. Life. The Universe. And Everything That Matters — particularly, Good Design.