World-Wired Mike Rohde Serves Global Clientele You never know where on earth an MATC degree might lead. For 1989 Commercial Art (Graphic Design) graduate Mike Rohde, it led to colleagues and clients in Germany, Spain, France and Ireland. Rohde creates corporate logos, Web sites, Web applications and business blogs for firms around the world, working from his home office in Wauwatosa. Privileged to be able to combine his passions for design, technology and new ways of working, he is, simply, an artist at heart. “I had always loved art and wanted to be an artist, but my dad warned me about ‘starving artists’ and how hard it could be for me to make a living,” he says. So Rohde came to MATC for a night class in photography, which led him to the Printing associate degree program. That program required classes in commercial art, and from there he found his calling. “The other students in printing said, ‘What are you doing here? You should be an artist.’ One great thing about MATC is that you are required to be exposed to other areas. I got good cross training between printing, commercial art and photography.” His cross training also included working as art director for two years at MATC’s student newspaper, The Times, and a part-time job in the college’s Design Centre as a student graphic artist. “ Glory Days” “The Design Centre was a huge key to my development,” he says. “I learned how to be creative using the resources we had to work with. We met with clients and had to work within a budget, yet the art directors let the students express themselves. The hardest thing to learn was how to work within the limitations -how to translate what the client needed into a great design, staying within the framework while pushing the design to the edge.” After graduation, Rohde spent nine years at the Milwaukee design studio Hare Strigenz, creating print graphics and managing the computer system. “These were the glory days in the middle of the desktop publishing revolution. I learned system management as I went along, and during that time I discovered the Web. I built my own Web site with a really rudimentary web design tool, and then built Web pages for Hare Strigenz.” Beyond the Web’s business potential, Rohde saw it as a cool new way for him to keep in touch with international friends. One of them was Matt Henderson in Germany, who had started his own Internet services firm and was so impressed with Rohde’s design skills that he kept badgering him to join his young company. “In 1998, I finally felt it was time. I was still single, and I thought if I never took the shot, I'd never know.” Hooking Up With MakaluMedia Having gained attention for its space systems engineering consulting work with the European Space Agency, MakaluMedia was beginning to provide Internet services and design services to corporate clients worldwide. As the company’s new design director, thanks to the very technology it was pioneering, Rohde did not have to move to Germany. Working on a laptop on an old folding table in his apartment, he began designing logos, banners, brochures, Web sites and branding images. From his home office in Wauwatosa, MATC graduate Mike Rohde is design director for a multimedia communications firm based in Germany. He’s still at it and still loving it more than seven years later, only now in a well-furnished office in the home he shares with his wife and young son. He puts in regular hours, sometimes at odd times. (His European colleagues are about seven time zones ahead.) Remote communications aren’t a problem. Rohde and his colleagues and clients communicate through e-mail, IM chat, voiceover IP and iChat voice/video. Communications visionary that he is, Rohde has been immersed in blogging and blog design for the past three years. Blogs have since become good revenue sources for MakaluMedia. They also help advertise the company, Rohde notes. Blogs that mentioned MakaluMedia led to four new clients recently. Since blogs can provide a forum for badmouthing, some executives won’t use them. Rohde urges companies to overcome their fear and get in the game. “Blogs are challenging companies to become more real -they can’t hide anymore. The honest, straightforward companies will be the survivors.” Rohde’s personal blog rohdesign.com includes his views and news, designs and sketches. Many of his most loyal blog readers got to know him through his Palm Tipsheet, an online newsletter about Palm Pilot technology he maintained from 1997 to 2003 when he sold it. Inveterate Sketcher By now you probably have an image of this guy handcuffed to a computer terminal. Actually, Rohde spends countless hours fleshing out ideas and layouts in an old-fashioned sketchbook. He often shows clients his sketches so they can understand the evolution of his designs. Former MATC instructor Bill Bonifay sparked his love for sketching. “Mr. Bonifay carried a huge sketchbook and a fountain pen around with him. You could tell how excited he was about sketching. I was his copycat, with the same book and the same pen.” Rohde recently got his own opportunity to inspire students when he spoke in front of an MATC graphic design class. He told them that electronic bells and whistles will never substitute for human ingenuity. “How do you compete? Not on price. I compete with creativity -something a computer can never do.” Working at home, one gets plenty of help. A sketchbook remains an essential design tool.