Where I came from and how I feel about that in general.

By name only, I am Laura Windham. Because of the fact that Laura is derivative of Laurel, the mountain flower, I would say that by definition, I'm not quite myself. That is, no one would ever describe me as a delicate flower, though sometimes I tend to overdo floral print in my wardrobe and surroundings. Windham was a village in Germany, though the name is largely English in origin. So although my name means and mountain flower in Germany, I prefer to think of Laura Windham to mean mighty warrior princess, or strikingly beautiful creative genius.

But this has little to do with my career choice of graphic design. On my Windham side, I come from a family of artists. My grandfather dabbled with watercolor, very basic stuff. My father was very close to a creative genius, an immensely creative man who shared his love for art with inner city middle school students for years. He was an expert at realism, but preferred creating fantasy scenes of anthropomorphized animals or abstract situations.

But my mother, eh, well, she's an accountant. She had to be forced into creative thinking, though she rose to the task very well. I like to think that my choice of graphic design came from the marriage of both of my parents' ideologies. I do not possess the massive creative spark that my dad does, but I have an eye for aesthetics along with a very logical head on my shoulder.

When I was a child, I was quizzed on the masters. Literally at age 6, I could look at slides of impressionist paintings and name the artist and part of his life story. When I was 10, my father decided to keep up with technology and get photoshop 2.0 (laughable now). He taught himself the program and taught me the basics. At that age, I decided I didn't like the covers of my pop CDs and decided to redesign Britney Spears and Shakira, etc. CD covers. I liked to think that they would both thank me for my genius if they ever saw my designs and would hire me on the spot. As far as childhood experiences go, that was the introduction to my love of design. Between then and now, I fluctuated wildly in my wishes for my future career, but always came back to what I loved and was good at. Recently I realized that I should combine that with my obsessive love of reading and presto! A career! Book cover designer! (Hopefully tangible book covers will still exist for as long as I need a career.)