Orbit30 is a retrospective series looking back at the moments, clients, and creative forks in the road that shaped the orbit of my career. The goal isn’t nostalgia — it’s momentum. By reflecting on the projects that got me here, I’m laying the groundwork for what comes next. Let’s dive in…
In 1999, I was freelancing from a second-floor walk-up in Oakville, grooving to early iTunes on a Bondi Blue iMac and juggling work for textbook publishers, a retail brand, and part-time teaching at Sheridan. On paper, it was chaos. In practice, it was an exhilarating kind of hustle — the one you only really recognize in hindsight as the crucible of your early career.
One of those clients was Deborah Crowle, Principal and Owner of the Crowleart Group, who contracted illustrators like me to create technical visuals for educational publishers like Pearson and McGraw Hill. The work came in clusters: cutaways of volcanoes, molecular diagrams of water states, heat transfer illustrations… and one particular assignment I remember being especially stoked about — a profile of the Great Lakes waterway.
As a certified Map Guy™, I was immediately hooked. The brief? Create a side-profile elevation of the Great Lakes system, showing depths, rivers, elevation changes, and notable landmarks. It was, admittedly, not what you’d call a blank canvas — a rough sketch was provided, perhaps a step above napkin-grade. My job was to tighten it up, clean the proportions, vector it out, and add just enough visual clarity to teach 10-year-olds about continental drainage without them falling asleep.
No textures. No frills. Just lines, labels, and a couple of tasteful gradients.
I finished it, invoiced it, got paid. The end.
Or so I thought.
For the next decade, I never gave it another moment of thought. And then — somewhere in the 2010s — it started showing up again. On LinkedIn, of all places.
At first, I’d scroll past and do a double take: Wait… that’s mine.
The exact gradients. The label placements. That Lake Superior curve I remembered finagling at 11:30pm, drinking instant coffee.
You don’t forget your own work — even if the world does.
But apparently, the world hadn’t. The image had begun to make the rounds as a kind of folk-graphic — shared by educators, geographers, science nerds, and proud Ontarians (and some Michiganders) marveling at the sheer geographic wonder of our inland freshwater oceans.
One day I clicked into the comments. There were hundreds.
People marvelling at how shallow Lake Erie is. Or how much higher in elevation it sits than Lake Ontario (hello, Niagara Falls). Others amazed at the full 2,200-mile journey from Duluth to the Atlantic. Everyone was learning — and loving — a diagram I had made in my 20s for a couple hundred bucks.
Eventually, I couldn’t resist: I commented.
“Hey everyone — I actually created this illustration back in 1999. Wild to see it still kicking around!”
Boom. Internet minor-celebrity moment. Replies poured in. People were thanking me. A few even called it beautiful, which — let’s be honest — is incredibly generous for a vector file with three gradients and zero artistic flourish. But it worked. It was clear. It educated.
And that, friends, is great technical illustration. Not flash. Not ego. Just thoughtful communication, crafted well enough to endure.
Now, the funny part.
The original illustration had a typo.
You guessed it: “Niagra Falls.”
Both I and the client missed it — despite being otherwise grammar-obsessed. (Deborah’s strengths lay elsewhere, let’s say.) A few weeks after I’d submitted the file and been paid, she circled back in a panic. I corrected it, resent it, and moved on.
Except… years later, the version I saw floating around wasn’t corrected. Some well-meaning PDF hoarder had uploaded the wrong one. “Niagra” lives on in pixelated infamy, forever typo’d and shared across geology classrooms, Reddit threads, and public servant training decks.
Honestly, it’s kind of perfect.
Somewhere out there, two versions of the graphic exist — one correct, one rogue. I’m the only one who knows which is which. Until now.
The takeaway? Even the humble stuff sticks.
The work we assume is fleeting often has the longest tail.
We chase perfection, polish, and self-expression — and sometimes, it’s the useful, clear, and understated work that outlives the award-winners.
This piece — made in the margins of my career, in the margins of my weekend — has probably been viewed more than anything else I’ve ever made.
It wasn’t brilliant. But it was useful.
And useful has staying power.
Orbit Studios still believes in that kind of design. In an age of information overload, clarity is creativity.
Whether it’s a logo, a social graphic, or an interface screen, design that communicates effectively — and beautifully — is what we live for. It doesn’t always have to shout. Sometimes it just needs to last.
Let’s make things that work hard, live long, and teach well.
