Happy Birthday, William Faulkner.

It’s our first official company holiday done our way. Today, September 25, is William Faulkner’s birthday and we are going to enjoy it with a #FunFriday (start looking for this hashtag on Twitter to see what we are up to).

So, why is William Faulkner such a big influence? I get asked this a lot when I am out working on developing our business and ever-growing list of amazing clients and I always want to go into much more depth than I am allowed. So why not use today as a good reason to talk about it?

The Creative Process is the core of everything we do at This Is Beautiful. First and foremost, we approach Design as Artists and our goal is to elevate the role of Graphic Design in every project we work on. Quite often, we hear things like “making it pretty” or “polishing it up”, and we do not accept this! Design, like Art, is about problem solving, whether through a complex user interface, a new brand identity or creating a sophisticated family of icons that are informative, instructional and effective.

Every problem can be solved with our Creative Process. We know this because we see it happening over and over and over. We have learned over the years, as Painters, Illustrators, Sculptors, Interaction Designers, Information Designers, Software Architects and Developers that we all, in fact, share the exact same mission and offer a variety of diverse methods to solve the problems we encounter on a daily basis. Our mission at This Is Beautiful is to mix these methods while never losing sight of the Creative Process. We are all Artists, but we do not just make paintings, sculptures or installations. We are Developers, but we do not just write code and build websites. We make Beautiful experiences, not just pretty ones.

So what does this have to do with Faulkner? Well, what I just described is much like the Stream of Consciousness that Faulkner embraces in his writing style. Perhaps a sentence begins with one intention, and after the addition of a semi-colon, completely shifts focus to address another issue. This constant shift of focus is much like the Creative Process we embrace. We address the problems presented to us without a pre-determined script or textbook to give our clients something new and interesting, all without losing sight of the goal…and to make this even better, our process is a part of our daily lives.The result is something that is compelling, usable, unique and thought-provoking.

It is William Faulkner. It is Art…and it is why This Is Beautiful.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Faulkner. We would not be here without you.