Assistant Professor Mario Macari in the Department of Digital Media and Design is a digital chameleon in academia and industry.
Macari grew up in the Milwaukee area and always wanted to become an animator or a comic book illustrator. His childhood consisted of reading superhero comics in the 60s and 70s, and watching Warner Bros. animations on TV, which furthered his artistic passion.
After being initially rejected by the art director of DC Comics, Macari persisted in creating his own comics, but later encountered the harsh reality of comic book making.
“There are so many people into it, and you can’t make much money in it,” Macari said.
Macari graduated from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design in 1983 and entered the workforce just as the digital revolution began. He had to recondition his style with the times, transforming himself into a digital chameleon.
He launched his career in commercial and illustration sketching for Dungeons and Dragons children’s books. Then he transitioned to early technology, where he used computers to place perspective into his drawings and learned the art of Photoshop as it became standardized in the industry.
In the 1990s, Macari wore many hats, developing CD-ROMs, programming websites, and transitioning towards teaching. From there, he would come to travel the country, instructing at a corporate level.
He taught thousands the art of Photoshop in a seminar form, until it became too much for him and his newly growing family.
“You don’t even remember where you are. You’re living in a hotel room all the time,” he said. After decades of freelancing and agency work, Macari returned to instructing.
Now in academia, he is exploring AI and intends to utilize it in his creations and teaching style.
Student Josh Bowen appreciates Macari’s unique teaching approach.
“I think he had a fairly progressive take on AI in education. He always wanted to make sure that we were being shown that it is, in fact, a tool that is being used by creatives,” Bowen said.
Though Macari views the constant need to keep up with technology as “exhausting,” his primary advice to students is to never stop learning and to integrate their faith into their professional life.
— Erica Herzog is a writer for The Beacon. She is a sophomore at Concordia, marjoing in Mass Communications and minoring in Law & Politics.