Guy Villa Jr.
Design
By trusting his instincts, Guy Villa Jr. designed his own professional triumph.
When Guy Villa Jr. pitched an out-of-the-box business card design to a local drywall company, they laughed at it: an image of a screw entering drywall on the front of the card and exiting through the back. “But the customers loved it,” says Villa. “The company came back needing more cards.”
Villa took what could have been a dull piece and transformed it into something surprising and fresh. The risk paid off in new clients and an award from Graphis, a visual communication journal that published his design in the Graphis Letterhead 7 book.
In addition to teaching Experimental Typography and Book Design courses at Columbia, Villa speaks at design conferences all over the world and runs Guy Villa Design, a studio focused on editorial and identity design for nonprofits, startups, and small businesses. “I always tell my students, ‘Do what makes you feel uncomfortable,’” Villa says. “That’s how you grow.”
