I've loved the creation process ever since I was a youngster who picked up a crayon and doodled a masterpiece all over my parents' basement wall (you're welcome!). I had the luxury of making a career of it in 2007 when I graduated from Michigan State University (GO GREEN!) with BAs in advertising & studio art. Shortly after I started working as an in-house graphic/web designer at a non-profit in Ann Arbor. In summer 2011, my husband & I picked up all our belongings & moved to Ellicott City, MD. Now I'm looking forward to exploring a new area, expanding my design skills/portfolio, & meeting some great people to work with (yea yea, don't end a sentence with a preposition, I know).
I'd like to say I have a preference for print or web, but I can't; I love designing for both. I've designed everything from magazine articles & posters to large banners & registration booths. As for the web, I've put together business, non-profit, event, & personal sites along with simple or complex Flash elements. I've also designed several html emails, one of which my design helped achieve a MSAE Diamond Award (it's a Michigan thing). As a bonus, my site has recently been featured on gallery/award sites such as HOW Interactive Design, OnePageLove, CSS Mania,The Design Inspiration, Design Modo, Inspiiired, & The Deep End Design (among others...balllerrr). ;)
This design was to compliment the concert festival theme of the organization's fall 2011 conference. The design was used in further promotions of the event. The t-shirts were worn at the spring conference to raise excitment for their upcoming "tour" & fall conference.
This particular article was about local government understanding the social media needs of its residents.
Illustrations & layout were based on branding standards & content. For more magazine spreads, click here.
This is a collection of a handful of recent logo proposals.
Our House is a non-profit job training residence for youth
in Baltimore; Ocean View Beach Club is a future beach community on the east coast; & Kerry Black is an up-and-coming photographer located in Milwaukee. For a more detailed look at the logos, click here.
These banners were used at several downtown Kalamazoo restaurants, bars, cafes, etc. for the attendees to easily locate the "Night in the 'Zoo" participants. For more large format design, click here.
The design (inspired by a handy tutorial on psdtuts) spoke well to the hard times Michigan communities were feeling, while showing the positive results/unity they'd experience after attending the conference. Shown here is the cover &
an inside page of the 40 page program.
Let's Save Michigan (LSM) is a part of the Michigan Municipal League, but with a separate identity; so the purpose of the design was to maintain LSM branding while adding a little spark & some unexpected elements.
* * For more of my print work, visit my Behance portfolio.
This was the first site I did as the assistant web designer for the Michigan Municipal League. It was definitely exciting since it was one of the first in-depth sites I created. They wanted something that was easy to navigate but still fun to use.
I created this site after taking 1 course on Flash/web design. A lot of it was self-taught, and although it's in Flash & clearly not SEO friendly, I was still pretty stoked about how it turned out. Take a look!
Image-Tek is a full service exhibit house that was looking for a clean site that clearly communicated their services and showcased their work. Note: I no longer update this site.
Visit Image-Tek.
The concept for this was to create a downtown & have the storefronts be the 8 assets that make up the Center for 21st Century Communities (21c3). The animation was also used as the navigation in the blog portion of the 21c3 site.
Note: I no longer update this site. Visit 21c3.
The Michigan Local Goverment Management Association is an affiliate of the League, so when they needed a simple, clean site I was given the opportunity to put something quickly together for them. Note: I no longer update this site. Visit MLGMA.
I redesigned the League's legislative e-newsletter, the Legislative Link, to be more visually appealing, organized, & clean, while maintaining branding standards. We submitted it to the MSAE Diamond Awards in 2009, & won for best association e-newsletter, beating out more than 60 others. Read more about the award.
* * For more of my Web Designs & interactive work, visit my Behance portfolio.
Lansing, Michigan
East Lansing, Michigan
Howell, Michigan
Howell, Michigan
Howell, Michigan
Mackinac Island, Michigan
* * For more of my photographs, visit my Behance portfolio.
Posted on April 7, 2012
When I started as a “professional” graphic & web designer in 2007, I perused galleries all over the place for inspiration, wondering what it took to make it onto these sites. I assumed these had to be well-known designers with an amazingly deep understanding of development, compliant coding, or were born with endless amounts of creative ideas. I’m not saying they aren’t those people, but it’s not all of them. I know this, because I’ve recently found myself surprisingly amongst them. (more…)
