Chris Beauchamp is a Canadian writer, editor, graphic designer and
pho­to­grapher with a passion for travel and a love for chal­len­ging projects.

Born in Ft. Saskatchewan, Alberta about three decades ago, I can’t deny my roots as a prairie boy, raised in the cities, plains and moun­tains of western Canada. As a young man, I worked several jobs in the trades, build­ing and oper­at­ing the indus­trial infra­struc­ture that sus­tains Alberta and north­ern B.C. as Canada’s eco­nomic power­house: as a labourer and pipe fitter’s helper on oil and gas pipeline and facil­ity con­struc­tion, a skilled labourer in a welding shop, and as a plant oper­ator in a cobalt refin­ing oper­a­tion. Despite offers of appren­tice­ship in all of these pos­i­tions, I even­tu­ally figured out that I wanted to go back to school.

Seeking a change of scenery, I relo­cated to attend the University of Calgary, where I became heavily involved in student journ­al­ism. I worked as a con­trib­utor at the U of C Gauntlet, becom­ing news editor and even­tu­ally editor-in-chief of the paper. I also hosted a weekly campus news and events program for almost 3 years on CJSW 90.9 FM. I also met Laura at the U of C, over beers in the campus bar. We liked each other imme­di­ately, and went on to live and work together in a number of student houses and Joe-jobs as we fin­ished up our studies.

After com­plet­ing my under­gradu­ate degree in polit­ical science and history, I moved into the Real World, accept­ing a job as a graphic designer and editor for a world-wide engin­eer­ing company. For 18 months, I was respons­ible for con­trib­ut­ing to and coordin­at­ing major oil and gas busi­ness pro­pos­als out of a couple of non-descript office build­ings in down­town Calgary. While I did learn a ton from my time there (and was able to pay off some daunt­ing student loans), I also learned that click­ing a mouse from the inside of a cubicle is not for me. On the plus side, I married my best friend in September 2008.

So, freshly debt-free and presen­ted with the oppor­tun­ity to pick up and do some­thing drastic­ally dif­fer­ent, Laura and I packed up our house­hold, selling and giving away truck­loads of accu­mu­lated belong­ings. We bought one-way tickets to Istanbul, Turkey, with a loose plan to make our way across the classic silk road to Southeast Asia and find English-teaching jobs in Thailand.

Although neither of us are cur­rently employed, I have been able to keep my freel­ance busi­ness alive while on the road, doing pro­jects for several clients, both old and new. My freel­ance cre­at­ive work includes pro­fes­sional pho­to­graphy, com­mu­nic­a­tions con­sult­ing, art dir­ec­tion, project man­age­ment and design for print and web. If you like what you’ve seen on this site, please contact me to discuss how my abil­it­ies can assist you with your own print or web design projects.

Anyway, that’s me.