Today we’d like to introduce you to Dan Rossiter.
Dan, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I guess I should start with the fact that my mom was an artist and my dad was a building contractor. Growing up, my mom taught me the basics of art and color theory. I first learned how to build things by being around my dad.
In my early 20’s I left college studying psychology to take a temporary job helping set up an art show at Bower’s Museum in Santa Ana. The understanding was that after the show was done being set up, all the temp workers leave and come back in 8 months when it’s time to take the showdown. Buuuuuut, no one said that directly to me and I needed the paycheck so after opening weekend, I just showed up on Monday and reported to the head of the department. He looked at me and said, “Are you scheduled to be here?” I just said, “I guess so.” Then he put me to work changing lights and cleaning plexiglass throughout the museum.
I spent a few years there learning the trade and went off to be the Exhibition Designer at other museums throughout Southern California. OCMA in Newport, Long Beach Museum and finally UC Riverside.
One of my former temporary museum hires had left the art world to join the creative team at Nike and offered me his old position when he got bumped up. He called me and said, “I know you’ve got your museum career, but do you want to do that same thing for Nike?” At this point, I had spent ten years designing and setting up art shows and was good and ready to change my own environment. I interviewed and got the job.
I worked with Nike for a couple of years and had started Camp Design to house my portfolio online. Toms Shoes saw some of the work I had done and contacted me to build a pretty major trade show booth for them. Once other companies started seeing the booth, Camp just kind of picked up momentum. Camp will celebrate nine years in business next February.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
That’s a tough question. It hasn’t been smooth but the struggles are well in their place at this point.
Please tell us about Camp Design.
At its core Camp designs and builds commercial interiors. But I run the company more like a branding and business consultancy. When our clients contact us about a new project, they’re in transition. They’ve been running small and have an opportunity to reach a larger audience (i.e., a home coffee roaster opening their first coffee shop) or they’ve been running large and want to try and connect with a smaller audience (a Hurley pop-up at Saturdays, NYC.) Interior design but with the focus of the project being the final audience. We’ve learned to put a lot of attention on the front end to making sure we hear from our clients about their current structure and ultimate goals. This approach really helps us do our best work.
What were you like growing up?
I think my parents would say I was pretty mischievous. I would dismantle toys to see how they worked and entertain myself but I wasn’t one of those break-shit-just-to-break-it kids. I wanted to know what made it go. In high school, same. Always testing for loopholes, finding where things were just at the line of okay and not okay. I just want interested in falling in line so I went exploring. I still get a lot of satisfaction from breaking things down to their elements and examining them. I promise it’s a benevolent activity. Mostly.
Contact Info:
- Address: 1347 Loma Ave, LB, CA
- Website: http://camp.design
- Phone: 562 277-1140
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: camp.design
Image Credit:
Scott Chenoweth (Dan portrait)
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