JOEL BARNARD Creative Director/Copywriter

I love challenges. The bigger the better.

Challenges that require a healthy dose of research, strategy, teamwork, and creativity to solve.

Over the course of my lengthy career, the pieces I’ve chosen to share here are the ones that best represent how this work philosophy and ethic manifests itself in the work I do.

Rather than bore you with the nitty gritty around why these projects rose to the top, suffice it to say—with each—I dug in deep to understand the problem and audience, worked well across cross-functional teams, conceptualized the creative on-strategy and on-brand, and executed methodically each step of the way.

That’s just how I work.

Which happens to be how I operate outside of work as well.

After a coworker’s off-the-cuff joke at lunch in an outdoor SanFrancisco plaza about the world needing a pigeon-killing manual, I took up the charge. Seven years later, and with the help of 75 talented illustrators, 10 photographers, and a very open-minded publisher, Cancelled Flight: 101 Ways to Kill a Pigeon hit the shelves.

While living in my New York City sublet-of-a-sublet-of-a-sublet-of-a-sublet apartment, I bought a rather expensive small digital camera. I found none of the camera cases available worthy of this fine piece of equipment, so I taught myself how to work with leather, sew, mold plastic, and, over the course of several years, prototyped away until I created something I loved.

In that same NYC apartment, the bathroom was so small there wasn’t room for a sink. After a few years of brushing my teeth and shaving at the kitchen sink, I tore up the bathroom, reworked some plumbing, and installed a rather tiny sink above the toilet.

A few summers ago, I bought a 1978 25’ Shasta travel trailer with the intention of parking it on some land I own up in the mountains and using it as a glorified tent. That intention quickly made way for a full restoration project that has made me both curse the PO (previous owner in RV-forum speak) and dream big about visiting National Parks from coast to coast in the years to come.

And then, of course, there is my 8-year-old daughter. Although she may be the planet’s easiest kid, I challenge myself every day to be an even better dad than I was the day before.