Cap Pannell

The son of an oil field worker, Cap Pannell grew up in small-town East Texas. During his high school years, he worked sweltering summers laying pipelines, pumping gas, and patching county roads, all of which led him to decide that a job in an air-conditioned office was what he wanted to pursue.

Upon graduation from North Texas State University (now the University of North Texas) in 1971, Pannell began his graphic design and illustration career in Dallas, where he established his own firm in 1975. Among his many corporate and publishing clients are Newsweek, Angels on Earth, the Dallas Morning News, Bruegger’s Bagels, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, the Boy Scouts of America, and Stolichnaya. Pannell has also provided creative designs for the Dallas Chamber Orchestra as well as for academic institutions such as Rutgers, the University of Texas, Southern Methodist, and his alma mater, the University of North Texas.

Pannell has served as a judge for the Communications Arts Illustration Annual and Print Casebooks. Awards include being named an Adweek Southwest Creative All-Star and medals from the New York Art Directors Club Annual, the Dallas Society of Visual Communications, the Dallas Ad League, and the Art Directors Club of Houston. His work has appeared in Communication Arts, Graphis, the Regional Design Annual and Casebooks by Print, and the AIGA Annual. In addition, he has been an adjunct instructor at Texas A&M University-Commerce, Collin County Community College, and the University of North Texas.

Today, Pannell shares air-conditioned office space in Dallas with his wife, copywriter Carol St. George, three dogs, and a cat.

The O. Henry stamp is his first project for the U.S. Postal Service.