logo for TEBO Design

TEBO Design

was founded in 1981 by James Tiebout, four years after his arrival in Houston from upstate New York. He initially worked for Gulf Publishing Company in their book division and later as a freelance artist with the Graphic Support Group, where he worked in-house at CRS, Baxter & Korge, Artworks, and other companies before opening his own studio.

photo of James Tiebout, owner of TEBO Design, in Firenze

EDUCATION

James Tiebout graduated with honors from the College of Graphic Arts and Photography at Rochester Institute of Technology with an emphasis in design & typography. His experience composing foundry type by hand in the typography lab gave him an understanding of how type works on the printed page. This informs his current work using computers to compose type for the page or screen, with an eye to creating even color and texture.

From 2001–05, he took classes in web design at Glasscock School of Continuing Studies, Rice University. Here he learned the basics of web design with HTML, that expanded to the use of CSS (cascading style sheets) and has continued with the current iteration of HTML5 and CSS3 to create responsive web sites that reformat per device screen size.

In the summer of 1982 he traveled to Trinity University in Dublin, Ireland for a Graphic Design Workshop sponsored by the School of Visual Arts, NYC. The faculty included Milton Glaser, Ed Benguiat, Richard Wilde, and James McMullen, with an international mix of students.

In Houston he attendied art classes at the Glassell School of Art from 1977–79, studying Photography, Drawing Fundamentals I + II, Visual Fundamentals I + II, Life Drawing, and Color.

Logo for the University of Houston_Downtown

TEACHING

Tiebout taught graphic design classes at the University of Houston_Downtown from spring 1999–fall 2014. A course syllabus was designed for their newly created Bachelor of Arts in Fine Arts program, for which two classes were offered, intro and advanced graphic design. These were taught in the fall and spring semesters for BAFA students who were Fine Arts, Music, or Theatre majors. He helped set up the computer lab for the courses, purchased an Epson color printer and implemented the use of Adobe Creative Suite for course work.

From the fall of 2014 through the spring of 2015, he taught an introductory course in Web Site Development at Sam Houston State University for students in their graphic design program. It was offered as an online course.

Teaching gave him a fresh perspective on design and his work was enriched by interaction with the students.