About Me
If I were to chart my creative astrology, I would be a creative director/designer sun, marketer moon, and UX designer rising.
I love talking about design almost as much as I love talking about my cat (yes, I am that person, I will not apologize). But what I really love is infusing marketing best practices, UX-style research, and fun into design and cross-functional collaboration — a mentality that, oddly enough, developed when I was studying theater in college.
I spent my first two years of college not getting to be on stage, which was devastating at the time. However, through a departmental “lab” requirement for underclassmen, I ended up assisting the prop master and head of costuming for two years where I got my earliest taste of — what I would come to later identify as — user experience design and visual storytelling.
While building pieces of cake from sponges, hot glue, and spray paint at 8 AM on Saturday mornings wasn’t exactly my idea of a good time, I learned a lot about creativity, resourcefulness, and collaboration. It wasn’t until I became a costume assistant, where I got to join production meetings with the entire tech staff, actor fittings, and rehearsals, that it all clicked.
In production meetings, we would talk about the overall vision and message for a show and how each specialty played a role in bringing that to life. There were negotiations and updates and creative problems to solve and suddenly I realized I was thriving. I fell in love with the process, research, and creativity that told these beautiful stories. And, I very quickly learned, that if an actor is going to use, wear, or interact with anything during a performance, it has to work with their movement, the character they’ve built, the historical period, and more.
All this to say, I eventually realized that I valued stability too much to get a degree in theater and decided to pursue design. A few years into my career I finally connected the dots that I was using the skills that I learned in production meetings, rehearsals, fittings, and all those hours in the costume shop in the real world.
All of the small elements of a show matter when it comes to telling the bigger story, and these storytelling pieces have to be beautiful and functional. Just like great design.
My Experience
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August 2018 - now (6 years)
Additional titles: Associate Creative Director, Brand Design Lead
Manage, mentor, and onboard a growing team of visual designers and brand SMEs that support Optoro’s B2B function and its B2C subsidiary, BULQ.
Evolve and amplify the Optoro brand by refreshing the visual identity, redesigning the website, and creating all new brand templates and assets based on internal user research.
Lead the creative direction and execution of Optoro and BULQ brand strategies, driving consistent cross-channel campaigns and experiences.
Manage Optoro’s visual brand and resource library and provide company-wide training on usage and best practices, advancing the consistency and effectiveness of visual communication across the organization.
Facilitate 3-5 design-thinking workshops per quarter to support brand and lead generation campaigns, quarterly marketing planning, and sales enablement.
Lead the development and implementation of cross-functional marketing and design processes, resulting in increased velocity of design production and reduced feedback cycles.
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September 2016 - August 2018 (2 years)
Led in-house social creative development for Capital One Brand and co-branded campaigns including setting project schedules, brainstorming, design and animation, planning and directing photoshoots, stakeholder presentations, and facilitation of feedback.
Developed cross-functional processes and led collaboration across social strategy, engagement, paid media, and creative teams.
Designed and published the first Social Media Brand Standards for distribution across all Brand Creative departments.
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August 2013-September 2016 (3 years)
Additional titles: Production Artist
Led development of award-winning creative for multi-channel content marketing campaigns for over 30 clients, including AMC TV, Hallmark Channel, SyFy Network, Fandango, Sundance TV, PBS Arts, Midol, Diageo Wines, Cambria Hotels and Suites, Marriott Rewards, Beiersdorf Skincare Brands, and Lavazza Coffee
Hired and managed a team of in-house and contract designers, providing creative direction, guidance, career mentorship, and education.
Managed client budgets and hours, employee capacity, SOWs, campaign tasks and timelines, and estimates for new business in partnership with Project Managers.
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Investor pitch story and collateral, marketing collateral
Investor pitch story and collateral, data visualizations
Property branding, event branding, marketing collateral, presentations, video editing