This is a little introduction… then each week we will post an update with the design volleys. If you are still confused, the video below should give you a clearer picture of what to expect. (It’s a compilation video of the entire Exhibition Season of Layer Tennis edited down to just 130 seconds.

I asked each designer to give me a bio introducing themselves to give a bit of background. We’ll be posting each of our volley’s up once a week and we’ll do a poll to find out who’s pixels will reign supreme.

The image below was given (a higher res version of course) to the first designer as the starting point. I can’t wait to get started!

The image was taken in the IMA's 100 Acres Art and Nature Park

Designer bios after the jump!

My name is Aaron Scamihorn. I am a designer at MediaSauce in Carmel. In my free time, I work more in the realm of illustration and portraiture. I have a passion for competition in design as it pushes us to be our best. Even that small level of competition you have while working with other creatives fuels a desire to try and one-up the other guy. I have competed twice on LayerTennis.com and made it into the 2009 finals competing with big-wigs in our industry such as Aaron Draplin and Scott Hansen. I also competed in the top 8 designers in the Chicago regional Cut&Paste event in fall 2009.

I have a passion for supporting local causes and have most recently created an illustration for Girls Rock Indy Chapter a poster in support of the Indianapolis International Film Festival and a Naptown Rollergirls bout poster. I am on the committee for Primary Colours and work with them in creating graphics and putting on events such as Installation Nation and Art Vs. Art. You can see more of my work at www.RONLEWHORN.com.

With a Purdue degree in interactive multimedia development and more than eight years of experience, My job is my passion, my specialty, and my art. Throughout the years I have specialized in user-interface/user-experience design, corporate visual communications, audio/video production, social media, photography and screen printing.

I am a full-time senior graphic designer and an adjunct professor in Indianapolis, Indiana. My url is http://cargocollective.com/jmscott

The abridged story of my career goes something like this: In early 2001 I started working as a Production Artist in the apparel industry. By 2004 I was a Lead Designer / Art Director for a mid-sized screen printing firm. In 2008 I started doing interactive design and fell in love with all of the challenges designing for the web can offer. I’ve never had the luxury of developing a singular style that I can call my own, but I’ve learned to embrace the fact that I’ve become a well rounded artist out of sheer necessity. I draw, I paint and I build things. I’m a logo designer, illustrator, web designer, print guru, iconographer and typographer… whatever the project calls for I’m always up to it.

If interested, you can check out some of my more recent personal work here, and some of my older stuff here. You can also see what I do at my day job here.

Basically what happens is this: a designer sends another designer an image that might have graphic design elements. The receiving designer then adds his/her flair and sends it back. This process repeats.

Collaborating with people you never will meet face to face is extremely easy now thanks to the internet. Not to mention, it is extremely green since you can do it from your own living room. I’ve compiled a little list of good design collaboration projects and websites that are following that same Layer Tennis model.

DesignSwap – DesignSwap’s sole purpose is to promote collaborations between designers by saying one simple thing – I design on your site, you design on mine.

Layer Tennis – Ten designers in ten cities, fifteen minutes at a time. Follow @LayerTennis on Twitter.

Dribbble – Rebounds: Respond with a follow-up of your own. Iterate and play off the shots of others.

Fark – One of the first sites to do this… and a Photoshop design contest is always in session.

I can has cheez burger? – I can’t think of a better way to waste time and collaborate creatively with others at the same time!

I’ve never taken place in a design battle, but I would jump at the chance if anybody out there in museum/design land wants to serve me. So… who wants to step into my cipher?

Moving Time

Yes that’s right, I moved here from the center of America, Sioux Falls, South Dakota.  I actually am a native Hoosier but moved further out west a few years ago.  South Dakota is an interesting place, it is very flat and has a lot of wind.  There are a lot of windmill farms popping up all over the state.  We enjoyed living in South Dakota but the opportunity at the museum was a good excuse to move back.

My family freezing in South Dakota. I will not miss the long cold winters.

Enough about me, now to something interesting I found over the summer.

While browsing the web I found and became an avid watcher of a design contest called Layer Tennis.  This contest pitted designers against each other in a challenge to build off of each others work.  Here is the description from the website:

We’ll be playing matches using video, animation, sound, photos, type and lots more, but the basic idea is the same no matter what tools are in use. Two competitors will swap a file back and forth in real-time, adding to and embellishing the work. Each artist gets fifteen minutes to complete a “volley” and then we post it to the site live. A third participant, a writer, provides play-by-play commentary on the action, as it happens.

There were a lot of interesting designs that came out of this contest.  I thought it was really exciting to see how each designer was able to take a quick 15 minutes and really add their own style to the work.

One of my favorite series of images came from this ‘volley‘ where Chris Glass and Aaron Draplin ended in a draw.  This fall they will be having another challenge so keep an eye on the the site if you liked what you saw from this series.