Imogene Pass high above Telluride, Colorado
Glacier National Park
Somewhere in Texas

Who am I and why am I called crazy?

I’m Suzy Johnson, someone who likes helping other businesses succeed like I have. I’ve owned my business since 1986 and have created hundreds of magazines, catalogs, business cards, brochures, flyers, websites, online stores, email campaigns, posters, logos, newspapers, banners, product designs, databases and pretty much anything else that my clients need. I’ve never had to advertise because my clients have always been happy to refer me (and I try to return the favor).

When I’m not working on something, I’m usually riding my bike, hiking, kayaking, Jeeping, playing pickleball or trying to bulk up on my Tonal. We also love to go on off-road overlanding trips, which is why I have so many boring travel photos on here.

Why am I called Crazy Suzy? Mainly because I like how it sounds, and also because I had a crazy yellow car that was followed by a crazy yellow Jeep. Ask me about it sometime.

what the heck is typesetting?

It all started with this

I’m seriously dating myself here, but I first took an interest in graphic design back in high school. We used a machine just like this to type the articles and headlines, which were printed on photo sensitive paper and pasted onto big artboards. The machines were extremely expensive and difficult to use, so I started my business with a machine of my own and sold typesetting to local printers and businesses. I’m sure my original machine is in a museum somewhere and they are still trying to figure out what it was for.

Compugraphic typesetting machine. Courtesy http://picssr.com/tags/compugraphic/page3

Getting started

Remember desktop publishing?

Then came personal computers

The printing world changed forever with the advent of personal computers. We could actually see the page layouts as we were creating them! Companies were able to start producing their own printed materials, and the need for typesetting on the old machines disappeared.

Compaq 386. Photo courtesy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compaq_Deskpro#/media/File:DeskPro_386S.jpg

MODERN DESIGN

I don’t miss the old
days at all.

These days I can send a design from my computer screen to the printer, the web, and to interactive online magazines.

Screenshot of Adobe InDesign magazine layout

WEB DESIGN FOR EVERYONE

A website is a must
for every business.

Seeing the handwriting on the wall in the printing industry, way back in the 1990’s I got started building websites. Back in those days, it was all about coding in HTML and being stuck with a choice of three fonts. It is so much fun building websites now with the ability to do pretty much anything you want with a page.

I can’t wait to build yours.