or a former reluctant business student who was discouraged from following his heart as an artist, David Wellman isn't doing badly at all. Ultimately, taking his parents' advice to pursue a business degree has come in handy, even though after fulfilling their wishes he took himself off to design school anyway.

"When I applied for design school three-quarters of my presentation portfolio was work I had done while I was in business school," he says. "Basically it's always been art for me, it's what I've wanted to do since I was a child."

In what was definitely a sign of things to come the former Warwick Academy and Saltus Grammar school student used his artistic talents as a budding entrepreneur while still in high school.

"I was freelancing here during my senior year at Saltus even before I went to Canada for college ," says Mr. Wellman, 43. "I used to make money doing airbrushing commissions, watercolours, calligraphy. I knew from early on that I wanted to eventually be an entrepreneur."

In all he spent the best part of nine years studying and working in Canada, arriving aged 17 to start ? "begrudgingly" he says ? a Bachelors degree in Business Administration at the University of New Brunswick, which he completed in 1984. He subsequently attended the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, graduating in 1988 with a Bachelor of Design degree, and worked at a printing company in Halifax before returning to Bermuda a year later.

After coming home he joined the corporate ranks as a graphic designer, first at advertising agency AAC for three years, followed by a five-year stint at the Bank of Bermuda.

In 1997 finally he made the transition into becoming a full-time entrepreneur, and after what he calls "a hard first year learning and adjusting to the realities of having your own business" he hasn't looked back.

As the owner of print and website design company OMax Graphics, he has successfully combined his love and expertise in art and graphic design with his business acumen and computer training for the last seven years. OMax Graphics is actually a sister company that he owns with his wife and business partner Christine, who is a qualified fine artist and produces a range of hand-made ceramic tableware and vases for OMax Ceramics. Their artistic sensibilities have also been passed on to 12-year-old daughter Meagan, who is already displaying talents in that direction.

Mr. Wellman's clients include a broad cross-section of locally-based companies, covering the hospitality sector, the travel industry and financial services. One of his most recently completed projects, however, ended up being as much a labour of love as a business opportunity, as OMax Graphics was selected to design and co-ordinate production of the new book launched this week by the Bermuda Industrial Union (BIU). Entitled "The History of the Bermuda Industrial Union" and written by venerable journalist, author and union activist Ira Philip, the book chronicles the development of the labour movement in Bermuda as well as the BIU itself, and the role the union played in ensuring workers rights were acknowledged and honoured by employers.

"It's been an incredible learning experience for me over the past 16 months working on this project," says Mr. Wellman. "I think it's great to be involved in creating something that will be of such value to so many people here, something that will help people understand the contribution the labour movement has made to the Island. It might be controversial in some respects depending on your perspective, but it's an important history that people should know about."

He says that the importance of the subject matter and the significant number of people who will have some direct or indirect connection to the events described in the book weighed heavily on his mind as he developed ideas for the design.

"Just from a historical standpoint it will be important for reference as a part of Bermuda's history, but a lot of people will end up keeping this book as a memento, because their parents or grandparents were involved in the union's activities in some way," Mr. Wellman says. "And when I started receiving the archival material, all the photos, newspaper clippings and so on, there was just so much, and most of it really focused on the people themselves."

He felt that this meant the book should be presented in a way that made it appealing to the very broad audience who will be interested in its contents.

"I spent a lot of time absorbing all the background information and because most history books are pretty dull I saw my job as the designer for this one as making sure the information was accessible, whether to historians, students, people who are not big on reading books regularly, intellectuals," he says. "My job is to ensure the design makes the words easy to get to. Ira Philip spent about seven years researching and writing this book, and Mrs. Molly Burgess and Colin Simmons spent many hours fact checking. So I had to make sure the images and layout supported all that work and produce a good product. And I had excellent support from Paget Wharton, Derek Fisher and the team at Bermuda Press."

The result is a very personalised visual portrayal of the union's activities in support of the written narrative in the book, as well as a robust index system for ease of reference.

"The layout and design is structured to make it easy to move through the book and find information easily," says Mr. Wellman. "From the chronological summary of milestones in the movement's development at the front to the photo index and captioning, to the fact that every single person mentioned in the text is listed in the index."

And according to Mr. Wellman even the cover was designed to convey a specific message to the reader.

"The group shot of a union rally that lies below the main colour on the cover, and the earthy red tone and simulated tear across the cover were all chosen very deliberately," he says. "They basically represent the sons and daughters of the soil here and the strife involved in their fight for workers' rights."

It perhaps would not occur to a lot of people that so much thought would go into what many would regard as the secondary element of any book, but as a design professional who has been in the business for 16 years Mr. Wellman stresses the practicality, as well as the creativity, of his work.

"What we do as designers is to communicate visually and use visual devices to solve problems that go beyond just words on their own," he says. "I'm more of a pragmatic designer, I don't go for following the latest trends just to produce something that looks pretty, I focus on helping clients to achieve results and getting messages across."

He says that as his business has matured he is finding that the work he is doing for clients has become more complex.

"As my core clients' businesses have grown so has my own business and their needs have become more complicated," he says. "I used to turn over jobs fast when I first started, because that's what was required. But now their projects require more time, sometimes many months, and I spend more time on both the technical and creative aspects of their sites. It's great to be involved from a more strategic standpoint in terms of developing designs that fit in with their business needs. I'm enjoying the challenge of that and the continued learning experience as well."

He is also enjoying entering a new phase of development for his business. He has just established a strategic alliance with US web services company ATI Amphiltech, which also has operations in the Philippines, and specialises in designing central databases that support customer relationship management systems, supply chain management systems and web hosting among other services.

"I've been exploring the possibilities of putting more emphasis on this kind of business in my operation for some time and now I have the right partner," he says. "It's exciting and I'm looking forward to the new direction we're about to take."

Right now he is enjoying the fact that the BIU reference book has generally been very well-received.

"The response has been phenomenal and the best result I could hope for is that for the people reading the book and taking in the images it's a pleasant experience and that they learn something," he says.