I pick up a stick and scratch my name in the dirt. I flick open a knife and carve my name into the picnic table. I piss my name in the snow. I toe my name in the sand. I am here and I made this. See? Look at it. This proves it. I was here, and I made this. I write my name in books. I label my luggage. I update my blog. I flutter on Twitter. I deface Facebook. I’m inked in on LinkedIn. I am here. I made this mark. See? That’s me.

Or not me exactly. I leave marks, and these marks are evidence. What do they prove? That I exist. That I am. I make my mark. I leave my mark. I record the sounds my marks make. Do you want to see? Do you want to hear? Check it out. I am, therefore I spam. I think, therefore I ink. I’m late, I’m late, for a very important update.

That’s my portrait photo, my icon, my image, my symbol, my avatar, my gamer tag, my theme song, my pseudonym, my moniker. I screen, you screen, we all screen for iScreen. This is my maker’s mark. I am the one. The only. I made me. I made me make me. I burned a copy. I posted a link. I handed out flyers. My diary, my notebook, my sketchbook, my canvas. Look what I can do! Look what I did! I smacked my handprints on the wall. I pressed my handprints into the sidewalk cement. I am fingerprinted. Here’s my I.D. Oh, and there’s my name on the spine of a book on the shelf. Love me or hate me, as long as you know me. Are you a first-time visitor? Care to leave a comment?

I think art comes down to this. Art is evidence that an artist existed. The made proves the maker. The mark proves the marker. I am an impermanent marker, but I was here! I was! The painting, the sculpture, the book, the thing, the scratch on the brick in the corner of the cell. That’s not natural. That’s not an accident. Only a person could have made that. Only a human being could have made such an impression.

This month, I will be posting design writing. What is design writing? It’s writing about design: graphic design, mainly, but also products, media, technology, and design culture. I write about design, and now I teach design writing. I teach design and illustration majors at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina, and I teach graphic-design MFA students at MICA in Baltimore, Maryland. What do we write about? We write about fonts and computers, posters and icons, brands and beauty and logos and love. We write about the marks we make on the world, and the marks the world makes on us. We write about the work we do to become who we want to be.