My name is Todd Roeth. Some of my job titles are father, husband, designer, birdwatcher, creative director, brand strategist, photographer and wood splitter. These titles and others are all a work in progress. My personal theme song was sung by Roger Miller*. The things on these pages are personal work, commissions, and follies.
It’s not a job title I am particular about. The most important thing is the way of thinking and of doing things. This website shows how that approach informs my life outside of “work” – the efforts herein are mostly personal projects or private commissions.
For the day job it’s the same approach, but usually with more people involved. I define my work to my mother like this: People out there have problems, and things they have a hard time saying. That’s easy to understand. We all have those. I work to understand those troubles and use as plain of words as possible to explain solutions to clients that can include visual design, photography, written and spoken words, sound and video, and physical spaces and materials.
A note about terminology. If we must use labels and titles.
Like many practicing their craft and plying their trades, names can be debated, then changed, and debated again. As for the idea of Design, I say this: I believe design is a language and a service that aims to reduce, order, and simplify. Good design says “look at the content and understand it,” not “look at the designer and like them”. But it also has to make me feel something; rational thinking seldom makes for anything worth remembering all by itself. I believe decoration is different from design.
Decoration is a craft which is additive and psychologically comforting.
Design is not art. Art is at once both self-actualization and self-critique; an inherent paradox.
Photography is the purest form of awareness second only to first hand experience. First hand experience is the only way to learn, fail, and truly understand – be it swinging an axe or learning how to design this website. Technology started with fire and will continue to make our lives better whether we want it to or not.
I love music and big dogs even when (and because) they bite. At the end of the day, I understand that money, knowledge, and passion are all required for successful business and are all valid and necessary forms of compensation and measure. We all have a head that helps us reason through our days. We also have a heart. How I feel and how I think can overlap in ways that are sometimes interesting, often confounding and worth exploring for a worthwhile life. Some of those explorations are found here.
*Scott Avett does a very fine rendition, too.