Lawrence Schau Jr.
Born on August 15th, 1985 in Brooklyn, New York

Lawrence’s passion for art and design was realized at a young age. He was taught the fundamentals of fine art and design by his two greatest inspirations, his Uncle Kenny, an established interior designer, and his Cousin Anthony, an exceptional fine artist. With their guidance, Lawrence spent hours practicing and learning the lessons of shapes, proportions, light, balance, shade and color during his adolescent years. His childhood aspiration was to one day be an artist for Disney.

Tragedy struck in 1994 when his uncle passed away from leukemia. Left to Lawrence was his uncles drafting and design equipment. Lawrence diligently continued to work and develop his fine art capabilities. Anthony became an intricate and prominent figure in the evolution of Lawrence’s abilities. Drawing from life and photographs, Anthony molded Lawrence’s perception of proportion, the line, depth and light. After years of teaching and working together, Lawrence applied to the Highschool of Art and Design in Manhattan. His portfolio made the waiting list but he was never called for enrollment.

Throughout their lives, Lawrence and Anthony’s relationship continued to blossom around their family and their art. They shared in many conversations critiquing each others work, visiting art museums and discussing the work of many prominent and renowned artists. Anthony tragically passed away in April 2012.

Lawrence’s formal design education began in 2003 at Monmouth University. Entering as a fine art major, Lawrence began push the boundaries of his fine art capabilities, enrolling himself in advanced painting courses and advanced drawing courses. However, during his first year, he took several basic design classes and began to gravitate toward the intricacies of graphic design. Lawrence learned quickly that he could blend his fine art background and capabilities to create some unique and interesting work. He switched his major in his sophomore year to computer graphics and graphic design, keeping a healthy amount of fine art classes on his schedule. His years at Monmouth were instrumental in his development as a designer, indulging in the history of graphic design, typography, color theory, design strategy and philosophies of past and influential designers. Lawrence began to develop an understanding of the what, why and how design can be used to communicate and impact both for businesses and social related issues. In 2007, Lawrence received his Bachelors Degree in Graphic Design from Monmouth University and returned to New York to begin his professional career.

Since entering the design industry in the fall of 2007, Lawrence has grown and developed into a diverse, versatile and creative designer and strategist. Prior to joining IEEE in 2011, where he currently works as the global organizations Lead Graphic Designer, he tenured the Director of Operations and Design for Mcnabb Roick Events from January 2011 – June 2011; and prior to that he tenured a Graphic Designer position from November 2007 – October 2010; before being promoted to Senior Graphic Designer from October 2010– January 2011 for Jobson Healthcare Information LLC.

Lawrence’s clients throughout his professional career have ranged from Carrera, Oakley, JP Morgan Chase & Co, Kaiser Permanante, BBH, Guess, Zeiss, IMG, through to small startup operations. Recently, he has worked on an array of projects that include, IEEE’s Annual Report, IEEE membership marketing strategy and promotional collateral, a new e-commerce website for Beyond Regret Clothing and the brand identity for a new art curating company, EmergArts.

When Lawrence is not designing, he continues to stay true to his fine art up bringing. In 2010, Lawrence became very passionate and captured by the pop art style/movement of the 1960′s and 1970′s. Exposed to works of Peter Max, Roy Lichenstein, Keith Haring, Romero Britto and Andy Warhol, Lawrence began to use his fine art and illustration background to create energetic, colorful, bold and highly styled large format paintings. Since 2010, Lawrence has been humbled have had his paintings have been featured throughout New York City galleries in several small group shows. With his pop art style realized, Lawrence plans to focus 2013 on developing a robust body of work to continue to share and exhibit throughout NYC.