With this week’s Painting the Corner, we’re going to jump back to visual arts with Caught Lookin’ podcast host and Austin Hedges superfan Meg.
Some who follow Meg on social media might not be aware that she is a graphic designer. As a teeny-bopper in the 90’s, Meg downloaded her first design program (Paint Shop Pro) to make graphics and zines for NSYNC, Backstreet Boys, and Christina Aguilera. Deep in the chat boards and forums in the landscape of the early internet, Meg took inspiration from her peers
and started designing.
Art was always a favorite subject of hers and found that graphic design gave her creative freedom that she didn’t find with drawing and painting. While in full college prep, Meg made the decision to major in graphic design and has been a professional graphic designer for almost 20 years now. Across that span, she has gained experience in market, PR, web design, textbook designs, magazines, and social graphics. A couple of years ago Meg had the opportunity to incorporate baseball into her job.
The above feature highlighted baseball players who served in the military. All of the baseball card images were designed by Meg, using the branch served as the team.
In her non-working hours, Meg turns to the Guardians to make more fun designs and to give herself another creative outlet. When Meg first started creating graphics for the Guardians, she wanted to contribute to the team’s online culture. She started with her muse; Austin Hedges.
Last season Meg posted what she called her favorite piece, a “Who’s Who” series introducing people to the starting rotation, the position players, coaches, and even made one for the broadcasters. She put a lot of research into finding fun facts to include and highlighted which players were drafted by Cleveland via the flying ball logo and which players are international via their home nation’s flag.
She looks forward to updating this and creating a new one for this upcoming season.
Meg is someone who continues to make the baseball and Guardians community welcoming and lighthearted, even when the season is at its absolute worst point. Incorporating fun with informative graphics is just another way people like Meg are growing the game one piece of art at a time.
