A Native American leader

by CADE SORENSEN Robert Jarvik, inventor of the first artificial heart, once said, “Leaders are visionaries with a poorly developed sense of fear and no concept of the odds against them.” Cal Nez is a leader to many Native Americans because of his vision and lack of fear. Nez is the owner of Cal Nez [...]

Cal Nez: artist, graphic designer, leader

by BRANDON FAUSETT The children stood silently in a line, their eyes focused forward, arms firmly placed to their sides, their backs straight. The hour has passed and the children are let go so they can make their way to school. “I feel like I was at prison when I went to boarding school,” Cal [...]

SLC designer takes long road to finding identity

by ANNE ROPER Cal Nez entered the room so serenely, he almost went unnoticed. He came to address a journalism class at the University of Utah and brought with him two seemingly contradictory symbols of his life: the first, a copy of Utah Business Magazine bearing his picture on the cover placed carefully in a protective plastic [...]

Salt Lake graphic designer builds business from scratch

by LANA GROVES Cal Nez remembered working at a small but growing graphic design business in Utah in the late 1980s. He was content being an artist and working on logos and designs, but the pay was small for the number of awards his designs were receiving. “We were the ad agency, graphic design [company] [...]

Keeping art alive through graphic design

by AARON K. SCHWENDIMAN A black hat and mirrored aviator sunglasses stares from the page. A Navajo person looks onto an audience cheering for the participants in a rodeo while a carnival goes on in the background. In the reflection is a community joining together for its nations fair. “I wanted every viewer to ‘become’ a Navajo [...]