We had the good fortune of connecting with Jimmy Henderson and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jimmy, what inspires you?
Almost everything. I feel like I am constantly looking for something new and interesting to inform my design work so I allow anything to open up new possibilities. I have always leaned into pop culture because I surround myself with so much of it but as often as I have let movies, TV, and other design work inspire me I just as often read books, go to antique stores, and study mythology. If you rely on the internet alone you are missing out on building your own forms of inspiration and you risk allowing an algorithm to feed you content determined by your own habits and miss out on random chance to discover new things.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
My career has shifted and changed so much over the years. I started out as a Project Manager at an ad agency in North Carolina and moved through the industry there in the typical ways, either changing jobs for better pay or dealing with lay offs to force a job change. I have retouched images for Ralph Lauren at a photography studio and been a studio designer at The Variable, a cool small agency in Winston-Salem. I worked as a graphic designer in-house at Liberty Hardware and I have freelanced for weird random clients globally. I enjoyed the creativity of it and I loved the people I was working with but I wasn’t fulfilled in the purpose of the work I was doing. I began pursuing my Master’s Degree in 2017 while working full time and after graduating in 2019 I finally found an amazing teaching position at Susquehanna University in Pennsylvania. It was a huge career change going from the daily grind of graphic design at agencies and working in-house to teaching students but the purpose was there and I could finally pursue my own creative endeavors and research as part of my job. I was able to start pursuing my research into the visual culture of craft beer, and begin writing a book, explore new freelance graphic design opportunities, and have fun with my own creative explorations as I wanted to. Becoming a professor and teaching graphic design has been one of my proudest professional accomplishments and I worked so hard to reach this point in a career where I have done so many different things in the creative industry. It truly is a culmination of so many years of hard work and late nights

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
When it comes to favorite spots in my city you have to find the small charming places because I live in a small town in Pennsylvania. In Selinsgrove there is an awesome coffee spot called The Kind Cafe and you can get the morning pick me up along with incredible breakfast wraps, paninis and sandwiches. If you need something more filling I am a sucker for JB’s Pizzeria when I want a slice. The hiking around here is gorgeous, we have some great used bookstores in both Selinsgrove and Lewisburg, and the main street downtown area has some nice shops if you want to stroll and windowshop. When it’s warm, the Susquehanna River is a few blocks from downtown and is beautiful to sit and watch, fish, and kayak. There isn’t much to this town but what we have is perfect if you like that feeling of community and taking life a little bit slower. We also have killer craft breweries all over the place and about six great options within 20 minutes so well worth visiting those alone.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
There has been a veritable army of folks who have helped me get to where I am. Colleagues, friends, my parents, designers I have connected with over the years, my graduate school cohort and professors. All had a hand in molding my potential. My wife deserves the most credit though. She never said no when I wanted to pivot in my career, pursue new things, go to graduate school and seek fulfillment in my career. She is the support that helped me get to where I am today.

Website: http://jimmyhendersonstudio.com/

Instagram: Jimmytheink

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimmyink/

Image Credits
Jimmy Henderson

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