Nice to meet you

The year is 1995. The computer: A Power Macintosh “Pizza Box” with just enough RAM to play Warcraft: Orcs & Humans. I had already been accustomed to Windows 95, but I loved how simple and intentional every bit of the Mac operating system UI was in comparison. When I wasn’t playing games, I was learning to use Photoshop and exploring the depths of system file directories… Being a nerd.

That same year marked my first campaign work. I ran (and was elected) for 5th grade student council using Forrest Gump as my theme! I scanned images from our VHS cover to create flyers, handing out small boxes of chocolates to prospective voters. The next year they banned the distribution of sweets.

A couple years later, my mom started a short-lived golf score card making business. Most of the company sponsors to be advertised on the cards would send small, pixelated images of their logos which would have looked terrible when printed. My mom gave me a buck or two for each logo I recreated in Adobe Illustrator. I didn’t know the program, but using my self-taught Photoshop skills, I learned my way around Illustrator and made dozens of logos.

Skip forward. in high school I enrolled in as many computer classes as I could. My favorites were Desktop Publishing and HTML.

In college, not knowing initially what I wanted to do career-wise, I centered most of my electives around computers and art. Eventually I took a Graphic Design course and my professor convinced me to to turn it into a career. Shortly thereafter, I transferred to Hickey College in St. Louis, ultimately earning my degree in Graphic & Web Design.

Since then, I’ve continued growing my knowledge, honing my skills, and keeping up with the latest & greatest industry trends. In my current position I’m  fortunate to have been able to work on such a wide variety of creative/marketing projects and countless development/web application builds. When the creative and development merge (as they usually do); that’s what I enjoy most! Conceptualizing, designing, prototyping, front-end development, then working closely with developers to see a project all the way through to launch… and beyond.