Lane Butz – Web Design, Graphic Design & Illustration

My name Lane Butz. I’m a mid-lifer with the best wife ever, two great kids (both grown) and 2 extremely spoiled dogs. In my work-life, I’m is a seasoned designer, working for over 30 year as a designer, illustrator and educator. Starting my career as an illustrator intern with Oklahoma City based design firm, Ackermann, Hood and McQueen.

In 1990, I moved to La Crosse, Wisconsin and accepted an Illustrator position with Gateway Foods – a large food distributor, creating illustrations, logo designs and package designs for many food franchises including Festival Foods, Rainbow Foods, Kwik Trip, and independent IGA stores. I worked with Gateway full-time for only a couple years then continued to freelance for them for a few more years after.

At 24, I accepted a full-time position as instructor at Western Technical College teaching Illustration, Design Concepts, Drawing, Advanced Drawing, Photoshop, Illustrator, PageMaker, and later, Web Design. I taught at the college for 20 years and served as Program Head for the Graphic Design, Visual Communications, and Printing Programs for several years.

Concurrent to teaching, I continued to freelance which eventually grew into my own design firm/software company. The name has went through a few iterations over the years. “Lane Butz Design” grew and changed to “IDG of Wisconsin” which later changed to “Digital Octane, llc”. At it’s largest, my firm had 14 people, mostly designers and programmers.

In 2011, I had sold my company, quit my teaching position and moved to Pasadena, California. I was immediately surrounded by so much talent within arm’s reach and fortunately stumbled into a group of programmers and web gurus that knew much more than I knew, so i spent two years educating myself  and “catching up”!  I formed a small design company called Otis-Cortez Design Group (I know, the name is strange . . . the company was named after my 1963 Cortez Motorhome, which I had named “Otis”. I continue to work with members of that group as I hand-pick teams specific to the needs of each job.

During those 30 years, I’ve had the pleasure working on some fun projects. Clients have included: Kia, Michael Bay, Hugo Nicholson, Siemens, 3M, Fastenal, Kwik Trip, American Boating Centers, American Physical Therapy Association, National Eagle Center, Mayo Clinic, Gundersen/Lutheran Hospital, Harley Davidson, Henry Schein Dental, General Electric and hundreds of smaller companies and organizations.

AND NOW . . .

My wife and I live in beautiful Paso Robles, California as well as Orange County – I have offices set up in both locations. I’d love hear from you and get your story!

PROUD MEMBER

9938 Flyrod Drive
Paso Robles, CA 93446
P: 626-298-5992