Malcolm Gladwell studied the lives of successful people. In his book Outliers, he concluded that it takes about 10,000 hours of experience to achieve mastery at a skill. That’s roughly 6 years in an industry. In the past, it was an apprenticeship or the time a child spent with their father learning the family trade that provided that experience.

A friend of mine, who is also a fine illustrator, once told me about a client who asked how long it took her to create a particular illustration. “Two weeks and thirty years” was her response.

The idea of valuing experience is not uncommon. We ask a surgeon “how many knee operations have you done?” A broker’s experience may give us the confidence to entrust them with our life’s savings – although “Past performance does not guarantee future results” is a phrase we often hear. We hire carpenters, plumbers, and accountants based on their experience, too. Rarely do we ask a novice to try out their newly acquired skill on anything but the most elementary task.

Yet, today’s technology provides endless options, claiming comparable quality at a lower cost. Sure, technology is great, amazing at times, even fun. But the old proverb is still true, “there’s no substitute for experience.” And when you add technology to THAT… you’re really cook’n.

Experience is involvement. It is knowledge and it is learning. It’s the result of observation, insight, and exposure to the world around him that keeps the practitioner in practice. Experience in the graphic marketing trade comes in the form of thought, expression, inspiration, and understanding. And the mastering of technology as a tool. Here at Axis Visual, our experience provides us knowledge not only of technology, but of commerce and culture, clients and customers. It spawns the spark of creativity. And it inspires confidence and contributes to efficiency. In fact, every new idea is based on the lessons learned from every creative endeavor we’ve ever made. Something that benefits every client we work with.

Inspired by Gladwell’s research, I took a look at my career time cards:

William Milnazik – roughly 65,600 hours and counting

World Meeting pf Families Logo

I don’t often use the word “awesome.” For the most part it’s been hijacked by teenagers when describing their latest phone app. But “awesome” and “proud” also describes how I felt when I saw the preparation for the World Meeting of Families event coming to Philadelphia this weekend. My wife and I took a walk around center city yesterday and saw the banners, the convention center, the WMOF store with almost anything you could think of with the event logo on it.

Though we worked on this project back in 2012 and 2013, it seems like only yesterday now that the big event is finally here. For the last few months, it’s been difficult to tune-in the news in the Philadelphia area without hearing something about The World Meeting of Families. It may have even eclipsed Donald Trump himself in numbers of broadcast news bites. Axis Visual is proud to have the designed the logo mark for this global event which has already become an icon all over the world.

We hope you had a wonderful summer, but is it ever really possible to lose that “back to school” feeling once the summer draws to a close? (sigh)… it may be hard-wired into our psyche. Sure, it may be a few years for some of us, but “back to school” will always mean “back to work” no matter what aisle you’re in. Though the school year may have morphed into the fiscal year, we’re still reminded of projects and due dates, and how great it would be to get a little help with our homework. Once you settle down after summer vacation and find your way back to your desk, make note of that name “Axis Visual” up on the board. If you’ve got a killer assignment on the horizon or would just like to talk about what’s going on this year, give us a call. We’d love to hear from you.

Now it’s even easier to get a good look at the kind of work we do – without a whole lot of clicking. Just look for the “Work / Overview” area on our site to see an assortment of projects and campaigns, or explore our site to your heart’s content. But you might want to grab that cup of coffee first – it shows a broad range of work. Let us know what you think.