Summary

I am a motivated, innovative graphic designer with over seven years of industry experience. I possess a natural eye for usability, a conceptual mind, strong leadership skills and am passionate about creating sophisticated, functional designs that appeal to, bring value to and engage the user.

Professional Experience

12/2008–present
Graphic Designer
Red Room Omnimedia Corporation (redroom.com), San Francisco
Developing new interactivity and design features from concept to release for a social networking site created for writers. As lead designer, conceptualizing the user experience by planning wireframes, user flows, navigation, user stories and personas to create easy-to-use interfaces. Preparing page mock-ups and plans for developers. Generating original company identity and personality. Copywriting marketing and user help text. Contributing to the overall marketing design direction for the website. Directing and providing creative direction to junior and contract designers.

01/2002–present
Freelance Graphic Designer
Designing and executing print solutions for a variety of clients and collaborative projects, including book layout and pre-press work for Weldon Owen Inc., preliminary designs for an exterior two-story building wrap for The Art Institute of California – San Francisco; a stationery system for the California Oaks Foundation; various posters and maps for the Health Law Institute, Faculty of Law, University of Alberta; promotional materials for the Peninsula Youth Theatre and a gallery catalogue for The Fibre Art Network: Professional Fibre Artists of Western Canada.

12/2003–05/2005
Acquisitionist and Production Artist
Duval House Publishing, Edmonton, Canada
Designed and developed digital files and imagery for educational textbooks and supplemental materials. Collaborated with writers, editors, designers and printers to prepare pre-press files for printing.
Located and acquired textual materials, artistic works, graphics and photographs to appear in publications; corresponded and negotiated copyright terms and usage fees with clients, artists, archivists, organizations, and individuals; budgeted licensing costs and archived final permission files and records for completed projects.

03/2003–05/2003
Visual Presentation Intern
Royal Alberta Museum, Edmonton, Canada
Participated in the development and construction
of original dioramas for the permanent exhibit, Wild Alberta.

08/2002–04/2003
Promotions Assistant
Grant MacEwan Students’ Association, Edmonton, Canada
Designed and developed print promotional materials for Students’ Association activities, events and campaigns on the Centre for the Arts and Communications campus.

Academic Education

10/2005–10/2008
Bachelor of Science Degree in Graphic Design
The Art Institute of California – San Francisco
Continuous GPA of 4.0

09/2001–04/2003
Diploma in Visual Communication & Design
Grant MacEwan College, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Specialization in Design & Visual Presentation

09/2000–06/2001
Design Foundations Certificate
Visual Communication Design faculty
Grant MacEwan College, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Affiliations, Awards and Events

2007–present
AIGA
Member of the San Francisco chapter of
The American Institute of Graphic Arts.

2008
Best in Show for Graphic Design
Awarded Best in Show for my graphic design portfolio at
The Art Institute of California – San Francisco Graduation Show.

2005–2008
The Design Innovation Club
Participated in and led the official student graphic design club at The Art Institute of California – San Francisco, which curated three annual exhibitions of the juried design work and fine art as well as hosted several events and competitions throughout the year.

2008
PINC Show
Attended the annual conference organized by
the Printing Industries of Northern California. Partook in seminars on bindery and finishing production, ecological printing techniques and practices, sustainable printing, marketing and preflighting files for press.

2006
UPPERcase Collective, the first chapter
Partook in a collaborative project in which fourteen artists created two limited-edition artists’ books: Pandora’s Box—a handmade book using traditional, non-digital methods and a wide variety of mediums, and Spirituality—created using the traditional letterpress. Both books have appeared in several exhibitions across the United States.

Technical Skills and Software

• Strong working knowledge of user-interface design processes
• Experience developing functional online environments
  for a diverse range of users
• Solid understanding of web design and navigation
• Basic coding in XHTML and CSS
• Mac OS and Windows platforms

Adobe Acrobat
Adobe After Effects
Adobe Dreamweaver
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe InDesign
Adobe Photoshop
Microsoft Office
QuarkXPress