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Local
designer shows no fear in expressing an opinion. |
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Creativity and passion motivate all of Jason Smith’s actions; from creating a design agency, to stopping Mayor Reed’s proposals for the Wild West Museum. By
MARUJA Reporting Spring
2004
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HARRISBURG , Pa - Nothing Jason Smith has ever done for either himself or his community has ever been planned, a fine testament to a man following his heart. “When I get a thought in my head, I go for it.” Smith operates his life on whims of ideas. His own design agency, Fathom Design, was spawned from whims of ideas when he was a technical writer for the then Quigley and Associates, now Morehouse Communications. To express complex
information to clients, Smith took up photography and learned how to draw,
causing him to start leaning more towards design than writing. He had no
background in design however.
So one day he made a bold move. “I quit my job
and, with no clients, picked up a career that I had no right to do and
started my own design agency in Harrisburg ,” Epstein said. A whim of an
idea translated into an award-winning design agency, standing strong at
three years and still growing. Another whim led to the creation of both his Design Museum and Side Door Cinemas, both located at Fathom. His building now stands along Restaurant Row, something that wasn’t there when he first moved in. As he noticed all the people that left the restaurants, wanting something to do after their dinner, Smith thought about his unused lobby in the front of his building. “Creativity is, you know, is about making connections. It’s about seeing one thing and seeing another thing and making a third thing,” he said. “So, turning a lobby that doesn’t get much use and a street filled with restaurants into the opportunity to start a museum, yeah, you see? There’re connections.” Smith also created Side Door
Cinemas from the same type of whim, looking outside his back door one minute
and, upon hearing a suggestion from a friend, showing summer outdoor movies
in the parking lot the next. “So, they (the public) can have dinner, go to
the museum and see outdoor film……it does give people, you know, really neat
experiences,” he said. Smith’s love for his
community caused him to take a stand on a few projects that Harrisburg Mayor
Stephen Reed proposed. Smith thought that some of the proposals, including
the Downtown Improvement District Authority, were “not well designed” and
that beautifying the downtown area was not worth the financial burden he
thought citizens would have to bear. Winning that battle, Smith once again
took on the mayor. This time against the Wild West Museum, stating that “it
wasn’t done right and I’m obsessed with things being done right.” In the
end, the mayor
and Smith agreed to put the museum on hold to compromise on how the museum
should get done. His plunge into politics
stems from one simple principle, “I can’t help myself.” Smith’s views on politics,
however, have made him some enemies. Samuel Winch, professor at Penn
State University , Harrisburg , disagrees with most of Smith’s views.
"I think he's a very creative guy who runs a really neat business,” Winch
said. “But politically he's a radical right-wing conservative who's willing
to overlook censorship, and intimidation of news media as long as it serves
Republican goals. And it scares me that someone who works in media can think
that way." Smith’s creativity knows no
limits, wowing even his own clients. He designed the logo for Who’s the
Chef? food products as well as the look and feel of their company. An
amazed Ann Lamourex, co-founder of the company says, “Jason’s creativity is
amazing.” Lamourex went on to say that during the session, Smith scribbled
ideas on paper in order to discuss them and then cast them aside.
“Sometimes he would say he just needed to put something on paper so that he
could ‘let it go’ so that other ideas could come to him. I thought that was
an interesting approach to the creative process,” she said.
Co-founder Ray Lamourex added, “He’s fabulous.” Smith makes his own shoes
from pieces of tire left on the road because, “I just got tired of buying
shoes.” He patented a new type of spinner for games that allows the player
to modify the size of the fields thus changing the odds every time the game
is played. He has a few ideas on his back burner including, “an emergency
escape mechanism and something that involves cleanliness in the kitchen.
Oh, there’s another one, um, is a way to make packaging tape tearable, or
able to be torn. You can’t say it correctly.” When asked what logos he
wishes he would have designed, he lists the former 360 Communications and
Pinnacle Health logo, as well as one of his own, the logo for Who’s the
Chef? “I have done one logo where I was actually jealous of myself,” he
laughed. “(The logo) sorta surprised me and I actually felt that pang of
jealousy but I had made it myself…but when it’s right, it’s just right.” Smith describes himself
better than anyone else possibly could. When told this profile was an
attempt to take a deeper look behind the public face of Jason Smith, he
responded, “Well, it’s a strange person, I assure you.” All stories in this magazine are the intellectual property of the individual authors. You may email comments about this story to: mxr300@psu.edu
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