Sometimes I hear people generalize that software developers aren’t creative.  I’m always quick to correct them.  “Are you kidding? The kind of problem solving we have to do takes a very creative mind!” 

What they are probably thinking is they don’t think software developers (and other types of engineers) are artistic. In my opinion:

Creative – relating to or involving the imagination or original ideas

Artistic – relating to or characteristic of art or artistry

I tend to agree that computer science majors aren’t known for being especially artsy, but I do know plenty of software developers who do make art of some sort.  DelMar employs two people who have made musically professionally, and musicians are artists, right?

One of my favorite ways to show off our creative (and artistic!) abilities is to make graphic designs we use on our swag items. I remember placing our first order for a box of coffee mugs and thinking “What are we going to do with 70 identical mugs?”, but it made me happy to give them away to family, friends, college students, interns, and random people. I felt like Santa! We soon got some Swoosh (Mikel’s awesome, almost famous basketball statistics app) and DelMar t-shirts, and had fun giving those away as well.

A few times each year, we sit around and brainstorm ideas for new graphics we can have printed on the shirts, mugs, stickers, pint glasses, magnets, and even lip balm.  (Lip balm? Who gives away company branded lip balm for swag?  DelMar does, that’s who!)

Click over to our swag page to see for yourself. 

If you like anything you see, we’ve got our “merch table” right by our front office door with most of these things.  If you come by to visit us, I’m sure you can talk us into giving you some.