Hello, fellow Bakery fans. Welcome to this blog post about me, Samee Callahan, the new Associate Creative Director at Pixel Bakery. I’ve taken a short but winding journey to this seat. In my four years as a professional, I’ve worked as a graphic designer in-house, a small shop, and a large marketing agency. Pixel Bakery and I align in many ways, primarily in our shared passion for creating quality, innovative work for clients that value such a thing.
If you read the following list, you'll know about everything there is to know about me:
- First and foremost, I'm an avid cyclist. I took to the gravel roads three short years ago. In that time, I've raced in one 75-mile race and two 100-mile races. I coincidentally finished them all in the same amount of time - 7 hours and 50 minutes.
- As I traversed an incredibly steep, loose, rocky mountainside on a "bikepacking" trip through South Dakota, I realized I would be decent at mountain biking. The adrenaline and sense of badassery had me hooked. I bought a mountain bike shortly after.
- One of the best vacations I've ever taken consisted of doing a three-night bikepacking adventure on the Maah Daah Hey Trail in the Badlands in North Dakota, followed by two days of mountain biking in Spearfish, then finished off the week with a 100-mile race in Scottsbluff. If you can't tell, I'm full of energy.
- I have two kitty cats; Auggie is six years old, survived kidney failure, and is now considered retired because of the new kitty in town. The new kitty is Kimchi, and she's a one-year-old ball of sass. Most of my conversations with my friends consist of talking about our cats endlessly.
Now that you know what I do, I'll give you a little bit of the why.
I'm motivated by excitement and challenges in all areas of life. When presented with a problem, I always think, how can I amplify this? For example, riding my gravel bike is fun enough, but by adding a goal of completing a race in a decent amount of time, I'm adding a challenge and, therefore, excitement. Instead of checking the box and calling it done, I always try to find a way to push myself and my work a little bit more each time. Ensuring that I'm excited by a project almost guarantees that the client and the target audience will be excited too. Ultimately, if you're not providing an exciting experience for the audience, you'll be forgotten.
So, look forward to lots more exciting things coming out of Pixel Bakery - and know that, behind the scenes, we're pushing ourselves to the next level with every project.