Hi, I’m Dave Webster

Hi, I'm Dave Webster

Greg Daake calls me Yoda. I think it's because I'm the "been-there-done-that," sage of the office, or maybe Greg just thinks I'm old.

I was raised on Midwestern, blue-collar values in Madison, Wisconsin, where my creative solutions to doing the family chores were often unappreciated. After I saw the world and took out my country's nuclear garbage in the U.S. Navy (RADCON), I headed back to the Midwest and "The Land of 10,000 Lakes."

In 1976, my junior year at the Minneapolis College of Art & Design, I completed an internship at the Walker Art Center and another that summer at the Design Center. I earned my BFA a semester early, and accepted my first full-time job at InterDesign, helping develop the signage and display standards for the pioneering Minnesota Zoo.

My next stopover was at the Meredith Corporation in Des Moines, Iowa, designing dozens of their special interest magazines, including the premier issues of Better Homes & Gardens, Traditional Homes, and Diet & Exercise. It was here I learned the real value of teamwork, storytelling, and demographics.

In 1981, I completed my winding road to Omaha, when I accepted a Senior Art Director position at Bozell Jacobs. The agency had just landed the national advertising account for Godfather's Pizza, and so it was an offer "I couldn't refuse." My wife Sandi and I, along with our two little girls, Kristin and Kimberly, packed our bags, headed to Omaha, and quickly fell in love with "The Good Life" of Nebraska.

On November 1, 1982, after mastering the ins-and-outs* of the advertising business, I founded Webster Design Associates. Over the next 37 years, our talented team was recognized, year-over-year, as among the top 100 design firms in the world by Graphis, the preeminent international book publisher of creative excellence.

Webster Design joined forces with Daake in May of 2019. Daake had been a respected competitor for many years, so when I began considering a succession plan that would provide continuity for our long-term clients and staff — Greg Daake was my first and only call.

The transition has been seamless.

*ins-and-outs = economy dependent job security common in the advertising business.