There is something amazing about what Kansas City designer Danny Gibson of DJG Design is doing. At first glance, his work appears to be outsider art made with found objects, but there is more to it than that. To understand Gibson, you must first know that he is a graphic design expert, having studied under great designers such as Cedomir Kostovich. Yet, when he ditched formal schooling to work a regular job and practice design on his own terms, he made the informed decision to abandon the conventions of design that most of us take for granted.

First, Gibson has abandoned the computer as the primary tool of design creation, instead opting to use his hands first, while the computer is used primarily for duplication and typesetting (when handwriting or arranged materials can’t do the job).

Next, Gibson has avoided chasing down big money corporate design gigs, opting instead to maintain sole ownership of his art and abilities. As he writes on his website, he is not opposed to working for someone else, “But, I do not wish for another name to own my name or hand and heart stamps. I do not wish to work for another man’s dream. I do that enough at my day job(s).”

What is immediately refreshing about Gibson’s work is that he has somehow managed, in a world of InDesign, Photoshop and gigabytes of digital font files, to maintain his child-like sense of art creation. When we were young, most of us loved making art. We did it without concern for how the world would receive it, using whatever materials came to hand. I am reminded of the famous quote by Picasso, “As a child I drew like Raphael, it took the rest of my life to draw like a child.” Gibson has found a way to tap this energy without inhibition, and use it to create strikingly original and refreshing design pieces.

His efforts havn’t come without recognition: Gibson frequently appears in Print magazine’s Regional Design Annual, and has appeared in Present magazine, 1,000 Music Graphics (Rockport) and many others publications.

See more of Danny Gibson’s work here.