Carpet Boy to Designer in Due Time

I suppose “due paying” means different things to different people. Where I come from, due paying is a part of everyday life.

I grew up in Dalton, Georgia, the “Carpet Capital of the World.” The origin of my appointed title of “Carpet Boy” was from my buddy John Bielenberg. My father worked in operations for one of the carpet mills. I was the proverbial middle of five children, and does it ever show. I was and, some would argue, still am a precocious little boy. While my brothers and sister were following the latest fads, I marched to the beat of a different design. I would get up early with my father, and as he headed to work, I would begin my daily task of designing, building and reengineering countless tree houses and other sordid structures. My building materials were a bounty from the time I convinced my father to buy me a pony. The lumber and tin were all to be used for the barn. A few weeks later, my little pony fantasy turned into a nightmare as the wild beast could not be tamed, and he even decided to take a little nibble from my brother's left ear. I still say he was taunting the poor creature.

But I digress— Looking back, I guess the “creative” label really fit, although I never thought of myself as the creative type. I use to sketch constantly, and my mother would present me as the “next Darrin Stephens” at cocktail parties. I really had no idea of what an art director did, but I was damn excited about the possibility of being on television! In elementary school, my teachers were equally perplexed about what to do with me. The only school “art” I can remember was Chuck Arnold's amazing and lifelike sketches of the band Kiss, and they were damn good.

Sensing my frustration and boredom, a few of my teachers assigned me special projects. One even let me spend my entire fifth grade year in the library writing and illustrating my own novel, “A Circus Comes to Town.” At that time, bookbinding, typography and illustration were unknown concepts because no one in my world knew what in the hell those things were. In high school, I attempted to conceal my creative condition for fear of my life. My attempts to revive my pathetic B-team basketball career from the eighth grade ended in futility, but I found a way to be popular, especially with the other freaks who spent most of their day in the “gifted” trailer out back behind the shop. In the sanctity of the gifted trailer, creativity was rewarded and celebrated, albeit tragic.

For some reason, our “gifted” teacher never showed up for class, so our days were spent in true hyperbolic seventies grandeur. Chip Adams could reenact the entire Wizard of Oz in just two minutes, complete with the “I'm melting” scene at the end. My friends Richard and Brian would become the Blues Brothers and get the trailer rocking. I think Brian did as many drugs as Belushi. My buddy Jeff would give us blow-by-blow details of his latest seizure. Yes, it was kind of like Breakfast Club for the brains. Looking back, the gifted program was a mere guise for a severely flawed curriculum designed for mediocrity, but I think it served its purpose in some weird way. Fortunately, I obtained a work scholarship to Berry, a small, private liberal arts college in Rome, Georgia.

After working my way through high school at a local pharmacy, I had high hopes of becoming a pharmacist and returning home to take over the operations of Dart Drugs-“Be Smart, Go Dart!” Much to my dismay, I discovered this calling would require multiple semesters of Chemistry and Biology, and science was really not my “thang.” In the midst of figuring out my career dilemma, I found time to completely remodel my college dorm lobby and institute a “territoriality” program, which encouraged all of my dorm mates to redesign the private and public spaces on their own floor. This was met with a little skepticism at the beginning, but I quickly converted the drunken bastards by revealing my trump card: a plan for dorm room lofts. This is where my early architectural training came into play. My dorm mates could design and build a loft structure in their room as long as the plan met with the approval of the residence hall safety committee. Finally, my geeky, some would say somewhat nelly, love of design now seemed downright butch.

For some strange reason, this newfound confidence in artistic freedom led me to proclaim a major in English. My favorite instructor, Dr. James Colquitt, challenged me to escape my white bread upbringing in an invitation-only creative writing course. For most of the semester, I felt like I was back in the high school gifted trailer. I struggled with this course until, after reading one of my poems in class, Dr. Colquitt screamed some of the most prophetic advice in my life, “Billy Grant, stop being such a goddamn putti and show me how creative you really are!” I was totally dumbstruck and rushed to the library in a frantic search for the meaning of “putti.” I was relieved to find the definition: a representation of a small child, often naked and having wings, used especially in the art of the European Renaissance. Stunned, I decided to take this as a compliment; finally, someone associated my talents with art!

I flapped my little naked wings together and sailed through my remaining years at Berry never stopping to think about what in the hell I would do with an English major and, by this time, a second major in business psychology. Upon graduation, I completed one of those What Color is Your Parachute profiles only to be informed that I was a perfect match for “art director in an advertising agency.” Damn, how do our mothers know this crap before anyone else? I guess she's right; she did have ESP after all! Still in denial, I decided to enter the Junior Executive Program at Macy's because I had read Federated Department Stores had one of the best business training regimens in the world, and I had found a way to avoid both business and physical education courses at Berry by substituting Classical Music 101 and Tap Dancing. Now, I had high hopes of becoming a major buyer for Macys and would be humming and tapping my way to New York.

Without a doubt, I would also be selected to redesign all of the floats in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. On the first day of junior executive training, Federated's CEO flew into Atlanta to give the class a pep talk. He ended his speech by asking the class what our majors were. He went through a list and asked us to raise our hands. Beginning with the most popular retail and business majors, he worked his way down a long list to end with English. I sheepishly raised my little putti wing alone until he stated, “Glad to know we have an English major in the room. They are the most creative.” Elated from my shout-out, my excitement came to a screeching halt after I was assigned to manage the Junior Sportswear department at Macy's new Perimeter Mall store in Atlanta.

“Paying my dues” does not begin to describe this hell on earth! Just when I reached my retail saturation point and was up to my neck, literally, in spring '84 Santa Cruz sportswear, I received a phone call from the director of human relations at Shaw Industries, the world's largest carpet manufacturer in Dalton, Georgia. Once I discovered the color of my parachute, I had written a letter to Robert Shaw, the company's CEO, requesting an internship in the marketing or advertising department. The director of human relations informed me that they had not responded earlier because they did not have an internship program, but Mr. Shaw was so impressed with my letter that they would like to offer me a copywriting and marketing assistant position with an annual salary of $17,000, a $2,000 increase over my current job at Macy's. Since I had experienced enough teenage fashion crises to last a lifetime, I took the job over the phone.

Two weeks later, I returned to the scene of the crime-Dalton, Georgia. My work at Shaw initially consisted of writing headlines and copy for ad slicks, as well as letters and speeches for the company's management team. I was shocked to discover the lack of communication skills in corporate America and soon realized this was my entrée to success in business. A few years later, Shaw launched a commercial division to increase their sales to architects and commercial interior designers. Since they were primarily a residential carpet company, they needed to acquire several other commercial players to kick-start the business in this market sector. Based on my performance and overall likeability by the good old boys, I was promoted to Director of Marketing and Advertising for Shaw Commercial. As the company acquired brand after brand, this became invaluable education in brand management and strategic positioning. In addition, all of the brands needed new identities and packaging.

After working with a small graphic design firm in Dalton, I decided to build an in-house design department. We hired a couple of designers and support staff, but I still wrote all copy and continued my on-the-job design training. For me, this was the best design-school scenario because I learn by doing, and this job was trial by fire. While Shaw was masterfully becoming a Fortune 500 Company, they did not value great design. Like most businesses, they did what they needed to do to succeed, and left it at that. Due to this and other sordid details, my best friend, an amazing graphic designer I had hired, and I were eventually terminated for insubordination. My friend and I were fired early one Friday morning in 1989. That afternoon, we received a phone call from a local advertising agency offering us a freelance job with advance pay. We eventually discovered their kind gesture was a futile attempt to keep us from going into business for ourselves. After all, the design business in carpetland was extremely competitive, and really impressive work abounded-especially that brilliant campaign known as “Don't you buy no ugly carpet!”

So, we began our own design firm in Dalton, Georgia and never looked back. In 1991, I reluctantly attended my first AIGA National Design Conference, “Love. Money. Power” in Chicago. It was an amazing experience for me. Massimo Vignelli had just launched his own line of designer black fashion. With the camaraderie of shared experience in fashion and boosted by a few cocktails, I had the nerve to strike up a conversation with him while the Fuzztones played in the background. The conversation began with my highly articulate accolades for his work, “Nice duds Massimo!” Of course, he was very gracious and amused, and two years later he offered to model a T-shirt I had designed as a fundraising venture for AIGA Atlanta. The photo came back, complete with Massimo wearing devil horns! It was a big success.

Not only did I meet the Masters of Graphic Design, I also ran into future stars, such as Stephen Doyle, in the bathroom. Design was fun, and all of a sudden, I felt like my gifted trailer of creative weirdoes from high school had been transformed into a doublewide palace of wonder. Hungover on the last morning of the conference from too much gin and a few too many paper promotions, I dragged myself out of bed in time for the closing remarks by Milton Glaser. He was talking about the power of design, and all of a sudden, I understood the language. He ended his presentation with something along the lines of, “And never forget that you as a designer have the ability to change the world.” Tears began to roll down my face as I realized that is what I was and wanted to be for the rest of my life, a Designer.

So, there is a method to my madness here. My incessant rambling to this point has been to illustrate the fact that we all must pay our dues as a designer, in whatever form they come. For me, I snuck into design through the back door, so I continue to pay my dues on a daily basis. I use to apologize for my career until I realized that I have been designing all my life. In fact, I am a perpetual student of design, and I never want to stop learning. My path of discovery and dues paying has led me to design some really amazing projects for clients such as Herman Miller, Muzak, Adobe, Blackberry, Farm and International Paper. I am now designing everything from identities to interiors to products basically because no one ever told me I couldn't. Because of my experience, and the dues I have paid to date, I have always considered design to be one great rock concert with a few empty seats on the first row. When the lights are down and no one is paying attention, I will continue to sneak up to the front row and rock on. After all, this carpet boy design putti continues to experience a renaissance on a daily basis!

Bill Grant
Principal, Grant Design Collaborative Canton, GA