John Crane, the founder, owner, and sole-employee of CraneDigital, knows the value of using the latest technology, without it he could do only a fraction of the graphic and 3D design work he does today. But an abundance of technology won't replace a clear understanding of color and design.

"The technological playing field has leveled and it all boils down to what you do with the tools," Crane says. "It is becoming more and more important to have a good idea and innate artistic skills." Crane, 42, has studied art for most of his life and has acquired design skills that pre-date contemporary technology. He studied art, graphic design, and illustration at both the University of Iowa and Colorado State University. According to Crane, this type of background is essential for creating effective designs for customers. "Color theory, composition, the ability to draw, a sense of timing and motion--these are things that people want to take short-cuts through, but you can't," Crane says.

Founded in 1995, CraneDigital specializes in creative visual communications with services focused on creative, consulting, marketing and communications. Crane has worked on everything from creating user-friendly web interfaces, to developing innovative business communications built on advanced technologies. The firm's clients include firms like, NVIDIA, Sandia National Labs, Lockheed Martin, Los Alamos National Labs, Hewlett Packard, Becton Dickinson Co., HACH, Ortho Biotech, and Pfizer. Crane also offers clients a variety of technical services including, action scripting/Flash programming, CGI Programming, 3D model translation, DVD authoring and even database integration.

Crane started in working in commercial art and graphic design in 1984 and has watched the industry totally transform itself. "I'm probably one of the few contemporary 3D artists who knows how to run a stat camera and a galley of type through the waxer, and rig a complex IK chain," Crane says.

Today, Crane's portable PowerBook enables him to deliver more sophisticated 3D designs than an entire studio of tools just a few years ago. He points to Digital Domain's latest "Adidas Legs" as an indication of what is possible with the latest tools. "The horsepower now available to the average user with an idea is so far beyond anything we could have grasped back then, I shudder to think what one guy, or gal, and a workstation will be turning out 5-10 years from now."

Crane uses a mix of different hardware and software platforms, including systems from HP, Apple, and Dell. He has a few Linux boxes running, but for most projects he usually uses a combination WinTel/Mac OSX solution. The HP XW8000 is the anchor of his production pipeline. HP's XW8000 workstation can be configured with two Intel Xeon processors with as much as 1 MB L3 cache and Windows XP Professional. Although Windows XP will only support 4 GB of memory, the maximum configurable memory is 12 GB. An assortment of SCSI, Ultra ATA, or Serial ATA hard drive options can provide as much as 1,000 GB of high-performance internal storage.