Today we’d like to introduce you to Mark Ziemer.
Hi Mark, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I’ve always been a creative person. I’m an Atlanta native, and grew up an only child with several health issues that prevented me from being an active kid. Instead, my imagination overcompensated.
From a young age, I was writing short stories, doodling comics, and making magazines for my mom based on the old Zoobooks and Disney Adventures magazines. The problem solving aspects of creativity appealed to my love of puzzles, video games, and tinkering with Y2K technology. I was also a huge consumer of books and RPG’s and movies — anything with a good story so I could escape from day-to-day life. For a long time, I wanted to be a writer as my primary creative outlet, but I found graphic design in high school and it’s been with me ever since. (Shoutout to my now-retired design teacher there.)
During my college years at SCAD Atlanta, I got involved in student media for almost the entire four years I was there: first as a writer, then production coordinator, art director, and finally as managing editor of the student magazine. That was the first place I began to find my design strengths and develop my collaborative skills, and not just complete a task for an assignment or praise. We had to do photoshoots and layouts on tight deadlines, wrangle personalities, and get our passions on the page. In addition to my design duties and classwork, I was also a frequent contributor of TV and movie reviews, so the writing bug never fully went away.
I got lucky right after getting my BFA that I was able to use those experiences to go straight into my dream industry of media, serving as an art director at Atlanta magazine for six years. But after a while I needed to mix things up. I branched out into other areas of design trying to find the next niche strength. I got to dabble in TV art and local government, and today lead in-house marketing and communications design for Georgia Tech.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
I’ve had to persevere and teach myself a lot to get to where I am now. My family grew up in poverty, hustling to make it while still providing me with good education and a healthy home life. I was only able to afford college thanks to good grades, some artistic talent, and a boatload of scholarships and student loans. I’ve had to teach myself all sorts of fun adult things over the years, like computer software, taxes, budgeting, how to buy a condo… (Plus a few fun things like travel planning and how to write a stand up set.)
I had a lot of health issues as a small child, and my single mother is now facing her own health challenges, so there is always something to power through, but all of these experiences have taught me to be optimistic and relish a challenge.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Like I mentioned before, I’m a graphic designer and art director who prefers to focus on work in editorial design, branding, and marketing design. My first love will always be magazines and news, but branding is a close second.
The majority of my work has involved local Atlanta organizations and companies, so you could say I’m a big Atlanta booster. I’ve worked with non-profits, startups, travel organizations, and more over the years. In addition to design, I’ve written several city and neighborhood guides for Access Atlanta. Those are fun to do because I get to discover new things about my city and promote places I love.
The two biggest impact projects I’ve worked on have probably been: 1.) the time I worked on keyart and promo graphics for a TNT series that saw my work plastered on a giant billboard off the Interstate, and 2.) my efforts leading the design team during the rebranding Georgia Tech went through in 2021. My logo work and creative efforts are all over campus and Midtown Atlanta, and it’s cool to see students wearing sweatshirts with my creations on it walking through the neighborhood.
Even though I have a day job, I’m always open to working with new clients on the side and expanding my horizons. And if you’re a restaurant, hit me up. That’s been a dream branding job of mine as a designer and a foodie.
We love surprises, fun facts and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
There was a solid five years where I was involved in the local comedy scene, doing improv and writing sketch comedy with a group of friends that played at various theatres. I miss it, but life gets busy sometimes! (I still have a running list of sketch ideas and bad puns that may see the light of day sometime in the future.)
I’m also a huge fan of game shows. Maybe I’ll get to be on one someday…
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.markziemer.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sylvisual/
- Twitter: https://bsky.app/profile/sylvisual.bsky.social
Image Credits
Blue background portrait: Chia Yu Hsu.
Other photos of me: Darby Williams
