A little bit
About Me
Sometimes a story is a way to feel a bit more personally connected than simply reading bullet points off a CV. Here’s some of my story:
Where’d this all come from?
I’ve been making up businesses since I was a small child, simply for the thrill of designing a logo and sketching out promotional material and letting everyone around me know that I’d come up with a new idea. At age ten, I had a wallet full of business cards that I had designed for each of my “projects,” which ran the gamut from cleaning services, to tech support, and handmade greeting card design. While most children write to celebrities or Santa, I was drafting advice to the software company behind Kid Pix© about ways they could make their product more useful to aspiring designers like me. All printed on my corporate letterhead of course, just like any ten year old.
Do you have a special area of expertise?
In high school I won awards for publicity design and scenic design for hypothetical theatrical productions in district and state competitions. I used my skills to design cast shirts, playbills, and posters for actual staged shows.
I went on to study art history and graphic design at the University of South Florida, before being accepted to the School of Visual Arts in New York. I spent the semester before New York in Paris at the Sorbonne, focusing on art history and practical art en plein air (painting, sketching, and sculptural work).
At SVA, I studied classic graphic design technique, as well as advertising, with a focus on art history. I worked full time during my studies, learning to adapt my skills and unique ideas for a variety of enterprises, including a private theatrical training school, clothing company American Apparel, and even for the City of New York’s Housing and Preservation Department. At HPD I worked across several departments to redesign the city’s 2000 page Section 8 handbook (becoming a certified copywriter along the way).
What’s a “graphic consultant,” anyway?
I left my last office job in 2012 and have been working for myself ever since. It’s hard to lock down exactly what I do (it’s so varied that my mom hates explaining it to people), since that largely relies on the needs of my client (you!). The throughline for all of my work is the joy that comes from creative problem solving and using the power of clear communication to move people to buy, donate, or learn.
Watching individuals and small businesses hit their successful stride with the confidence that comes from knowing they have all the materials, words, and ideas they need to win and retain customers – there isn’t much that tops that.
You need a graphic designer, sure. But you also need somebody to make sure you’re truly putting your best foot forward in every arena (advertising, SEO, social media), without breaking the bank. You need a teammate who knows the game and loves inventing new plays.
Could we be unstoppable together?
