Experience
Aquent Studios: August 2018 - Present
Creative Director
In my role as Creative Director, I provide support and guidance to our creative teams. Drawing on in-depth research into emerging trends, I articulate our agency's capabilities through compelling client presentations. As technology increasingly intertwines with our marketing strategies, I'm dedicated to elevating our teams through continuous education and empowering leadership to seize opportunities. This is accomplished by:
• Promoting growth through building strong client relationships built upon trust and effective marketing.
• Supporting clients by finding efficient, industry-leading solutions that exceed their goals and ensure success.
• Educating our talent through research, implementation and guidance in the use of tested technology and tools.
• Inspiring and empowering creative teams to deliver engaging work and encouraging professional growth.
• Collaborating with leadership to engage prospects, showcasing our expertise and strengths in offering impactful solutions that will bring their vision to life.
• Offering client support for brands including for Walmart, Salesforce, Boeing, MetLife, CVS, McDonalds, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Mozilla, Expedia, Fidelity, Pitney Bowes, Dell, Johnson & Johnson, Frontier Internet and VMWare.
Avery Products Corporation: July 2008 - February 2017
Senior Interactive Designer/Developer
During my tenure as a Senior Designer, I played a key role in our creative divisions. Drawing on a solid grasp of design principles and industry standards, I showcased our company's innovations through striking visual solutions, making full use of pertinent digital tools and platforms. I was dedicated to enhancing our customer interactions by crafting visually engaging materials aimed at promoting the relevant nature of our products and designs. This was realized through:
• Developing cohesive, interactive experiences, introducing DIY customization and innovations for special occasion printables.
• Leading product launches, directing photo shoots and collaborating with content creators to showcase distinctive features.
• Partnering with teams at Martha Stewart, Sanrio and Hershey to craft promotional materials for licensed product lines.
• Designing, developing and testing targeted promotional emails and social campaigns, emphasizing engaging design and cross-platform compatibility.
• Facilitating strategic marketing partnerships with major vendors like Amazon, Staples and Walmart, ensuring brand cohesion and producing essential promotional assets.
• Crafting print collateral for trade shows with versatile booth configurations, and coordinating artwork approvals with marketing teams.
Gateway Computers: September 2004 – July 2008
Manager of Web Design
In my role as a Web Design Manager, I was instrumental in shaping the digital landscape of the Gateway brand. Harnessing a robust knowledge of web design principles and contemporary digital trends, I transformed the online presence with user-centric and dynamic designs. My focus was a combination of aesthetics and creating intuitive user interfaces that optimized user experience, seamlessly integrating diverse functionalities. My contributions spanned:
• Work in conjunction with other creative managers to establish a consistent design system and ensure brand integrity.
• Supporting the marketing, engineering and IA teams in the release of a brand update, server and gaming desktop launch all on an entirely new architecture based on LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL).
• Collaborating with Microsoft to launch Windows Vista OS across consumer and professional products and all digital touchpoints, supported by The Microsoft Market Development Team.
• Work with The Product R&D Team to design a marketing campaign for gaming PCs and peripherals
• Design UI and assist in the creation of new PC-configuration experience aimed to clearly explain product features, simplify visual hierarchy, and drive customization and attach rates throughout the purchase process
• Work on concepts for digital media, including a promotional site and ad campaign to announce the launch.
• Collaborate with product and sales teams to prioritize the goals.
• Conceptualization of a site design aimed at offering government agencies and private organizations special pricing on select systems, a feature-comparison tool to breakdown hardware specs, and promote the benefits of professional PCs.
• Direct the launch of International sites for China, Japan, Mexico, and the United Kingdom, and the product launches of business PCs, servers, displays and high-capacity storage devices.
Consultation & Freelance Experience
Spectros Instruments, Hopedale, MA: December 2015 - Present
Support marketing operations for a mid-size business that specializes in monitoring gases used in structural and commodity fumigations. Conceptualize and develop interactive dashboards used by customers to identify progress, alert to dangerous release of gas and produce certified reports used in transit of goods between global ports. Interactive designs are tested for user experience, and built for responsiveness across all devices and screen sizes. These modular dashboards are customizable to address a range of client needs and used to support customers ranging from private fumigators to Fortune 500 giants.
Star Talent Productions, High Point, NC: March 2017 - January 2018
Created a brand identity, designed and developed a WordPress website to market a production company that hosts professional dance performances for the East Coast. Designed print materials for stage backdrops, banners, trophies, medals, marketing materials and social graphics.
Avanade Consulting, Aliso Viejo, CA: May - July 2008
Assisted the Microsoft Team in building an interactive proof-of-concept for a digital white board using Adobe Flash and ActionScript. The goal was to demonstrate a virtual environment for engineers withing Office Labs to share ideas. As a result, Avanade was awarded the account by Microsoft, and carried on development using my concept.
Mar Design, Lake Forest, CA: April - June 2008
Developed page templates to clearly define the hierarchy between product segments for the upcoming 2009 Annual Dealer Catalog. Built dynamic fields, and setup data merge to populate the catalog images, text, and links (for an interactive publication).
Avery Dennison, Brea CA: November 2007 - July 2008
Designed an array of website concepts aimed at supporting the creation of a new design system that would improve user experience and draw in a wider demographic. Created a solution for promotional product presentation wherein interactive experience could be localized, with the support of XML, to the languages of supported country websites.
Education
Laguna College of Art and Design, Laguna Beach, CA
Bachelor's of Fine Arts degree in Graphic Design: May 19, 2001
Fundamental art requirements in illustration, rendering, figure drawing, sculpture, color theory, photography and art history. Graphic & Interactive Media Design courses in print design and process, typography, package design, 3D modeling, animation and web design.
Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA
Studied Biology (Pre-Med) with Computer Science Minor
Studies included an emphasis in Biology, Chemistry and Genetics with a minor in Computer Science and Fine Art. The Fine Art education combined with my interest in Computer Science, leading to an interest in the emerging field of graphic and web design.
Skills
Advanced Expertise
Workflow Management
Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Adobe Experience Manager, Workfront, Marketo, Microsoft SharePoint, Google Workspace
Conference & collaboration apps: Slack, Miro, Zoom, Webex, Teams, Spatial/Metaverse
Platform fluency: actively work within Windows and MacOS, VPN and virtual environments
Visual Concept & Layout
Photoshop, Illustrator, AfterEffects, InDesign, Lightroom, Figma, Midjourney, Acrobat Remediation for Accessible PDFs, Midjourney/Firefly, ChatGPT
Skill specifics: UX design, storyboards, composition, photo retouching and RAW workflow, small and large-format printing, interactive presentation, Generative-AI, AI-assisted workflow, motion graphics, social media, paid media campaigns
Front-end Development
VSCode, GitHub, WordPress, HTML5, CSS (Flex and Grid), JavaScript, multiple CMS tools
Presentation, Email and Social Media
Litmus, Email on Acid, PowerPoint (Branded template design), responsive & fluid design techniques, Adobe Experience Manager, Celtra
Proficient
Premiere, AfterEffects, photography and photo shoot direction, Microsoft Office (all applications).