Clients:  Amgen Corporate (specifically scientists, sales & marketing executives)

Objective: Set up an off-site production team to create PowerPoint presentations for the Amgen employees speaking at their annual Sales Meeting to be held in Chicago;  Have same team available for last minute revisions on-site in Chicago during the 5 day conference.

Role: Project Manager, Creative Director

Challenges: Original presentations and revisions had a very short turnaround time-frame, and all communication with author/presenters was primarily through scanned and faxed mock-ups.

Approach:  Set the team up in Syndicatebleu’s Century City Offices (agency with the creative support contract with Amgen).  After estimating the projects needs, I hired a team of 10 presentation specialist contractors, rented the equipment needed, and spent a day training the team. Using procedure, style guide and other documents I created to simplify work flow and cut down on errors, I spent the first day training and holding discussions with the team to agree on a plan that we all felt with work.  As the project started, we altered the plan as needed to streamline production.

Results:  A week after we were back from Chicago, the Amgen Dept. managers for the groups we supported told us that they were extremely impressed with the level of talent and professionalism the support team possessed, and that the “in-house” clients had expressed their satisfaction as well.  They said they had never had a meeting support team as efficient and easy to work with as own team had been.

Recommendations:

Clients: Proctor & Gamble, Excite @Home, Creative Wonders/Mattel

Objective: To create the first interactive online beauty makeover application for teens using the Max Factor cosmetic brand products, including an online community gallery.

Target Market: Excite @Home’s European Teen Community website “Swizzle”.  Future plans were to update and release a U.S. version.

Role: Art Manager (Tasks included: Activity/UI/UX design, asset production scheduling & dev management, creative direction of in-house & contract artists/animators, collaborating with client’s producer, project manager,  programming & marketing leads to meet goals)

Challenges:

• “Virtual Makeover” (VM) User interface needed to include many functions and options in a limited space.
• Max Factor product line’s exact product names & colors (lipstick, eye shadow, blush) needed to be incorporated into the choices.
• Needed to develop transparent cursor brushes that applied the make-up in a realistic way, with the ability to apply light to heavy.
• Included a Finished Look page with the names of products used, and the ability to save/send the image, & upload to an online gallery.
• Community gallery to include advanced image upload functionality, advanced search options,voting capabilities with results pages.
• Extremely tight schedule of 4 months for entire project, which meant less than 3 months for creative asset production.

Approach: Considering the extremely aggressive production timeline, along with unique functions to be included, a detailed scope of work and production schedule needed to be created. We agreed on a design direction, I competed pre-production research and created a very detailed MS Project schedule.  We had to stick to this in order to meet the milestones we had agreed to. By monitoring production very closely and making adjustments to talent and/or scope we were able to create 1200+ assets within a little over 2 months time.  Including a model search and photo-shoot. And not just ordinary assets- we needed to develop templates that fit all possible model and user heads, and all assets had to fit these parameters. Plus all choice assets needed to be removed form their background, and hairstyles duplicated into 8 different colors! All of this while designing, creating and testing the complex UI.

Results:  Thanks to an incredible team all around, we meshed into a free-flowing body of ability and kicked some development butt on this one!  Which means we delivered a robust product on time and within budget. The clients felt the finished product was richer and more interactive than they had envisioned, and were extremely happy with our ability to deliver by the scheduled release date.  And the audience?  The teens loved it!  Almost immediately upon release the application was in constant use and new user makeover images were being submitted to the Gallery continually. The Gallery also had a large viewing audience with makeovers being rated as hoped.

Surprises:  That all ages loved it!  Word of the app spread around our 300+ employee office and everyone was playing with it!  Someone even took our CEO’s image and gave him a beautiful makeover!  Luckily these makeovers were only seen on our testing server.  A few industrious teens in England did, however, find that they loved to give makeovers to their dogs and celebrities.

Gallery:

Recommendation:

Clients: O.W.I.P. Holdings & Shareholders

Objective: To bring a new voice technology, V.O.I.P (Voice Over Internet Technology), service company to market including the sales website, brand identity,  marketing materials (print, email & online), packaging & product inserts, etc., within an extremely aggressive development schedule  & limited budget.

Target Market: Households with traditional phone service, Persons & businesses that make a lot of long distance calls, especially international.

Role: Creative Director, Project Manager

Challenges: Bringing a fairly new technology to market within a limited time frame with a limited budget.

Approach: Led a team of artists, programmers and marketing specialists in the design and implementation of finished products consisting of fully functioning websites with forms, databases, sign-up and shopping cart abilities; plus brand identity and advertising marketing materials such as print brochures, emails and banner ads in the direct mail and internet markets.

Gallery:

Results: Launched the website on schedule with limited bugs or problems with customers ordering online. Marketing efforts had a high rate of return and the company grew steadily. Considering the limited amount of time, money, and resources to launch this product, the results were impressive. Our competition was “Vonage” whom had several million in investment capitol fueling its marketing efforts. (They also had a lot farther to climb to be out of debt!)

Recommendation:

Description: The Learning Company’s educational adventure CDrom series includes editions for Preschool, Kindergarten,First, and Second grades.  This program offers automatic help messages, multiple skill levels for younger and older children, and progress reports for parents.

Role: Art Manager, Game Design, Web UI/UX Design, Illustrator,

Clients: The Learning Company/Creative Wonders, Mattel Interactive, Creator Marc Brown

Objective: Initially to create a 3 title/ 6 CD educational children’s game series featuring the popular “Arthur” cartoon character. Upon completion contracted to add the Preschool version.

Target Market: 3 – 8 year old children (includes 4  products), and of course the teachers and parents who purchase it for them!

Role: Art Manager (Preschool); Senior Lead Artist (K-2nd Grade) (Tasks included: Activity/UI/UX design, asset production scheduling & development management, creative direction of a large production team of in-house & contract artists/animators, collaborating with client’s producer, project manager,  programming & marketing leads to meet goals)

Challenges:  To create the first 3 titles (6 CDs/27  activity modules) within 6 months; all graphics & animations to match the licensed character, “Arthur” style- which was very well know through his book collection & television series; create the 4th title in 3 months with the addition of a complete personalization module and all new activities which needed new graphics.

Approach: After compiling the  project schedule & resource needs, brought in talented game development contractors to augment the internal team so …Set up an assembly-line type production that started with my sketches, etc, Worked closely with creator Marc Brown to make sure product represented the franchise closely.

Gallery:

Results: Successful in keeping within and enhancing brand attributes; products delivered on-time and within budget. Creator Marc Brown was so thrilled with the finished product he made a special trip from his home in Boston to our San Rafael, CA studio to meet the production team. Marc stated that we had came the closest of anyone to recreating his drawing style.

Reviews:

Recommendation:

I am an extremely motivated Creative Director and Project Manager with 16 years experience managing creative development for entertainment, educational and marketing applications, including interactive and print. With a positive, energetic outlook, I thrive on being an integral part of a highly creative team developing cutting edge product. With strong organizational skills and a eye for detail, I have been very successful in designing and managing complex, challenging projects involving large teams over many disciplines – not only meeting, but exceeding expectations.

These recommendations offer great insight into my work ethic and abilities.

The Elephant in the Room

Considering me to manage your project?  Some may think that if it’s not the same type of project as my past experience that I may not be a good candidate. Wrong!  Many of the projects I have managed dealt with either subject matter or technologies I had no or little prior knowledge of or experience with.  I successfully got up to speed very quickly and led the projects with creative solutions and excellent outcomes.  Always with a fresh and forward-thinking perspective, the phrase “can’t be done” is only valid when it has been proven to me.  Then I quickly find an alternative path.  I would say one of my strongest values is offering unique solutions to any creative challenge.

My overall basic design sensibilities and project/team management skills can be applied to any industry or genre on any platform.  I have the ability to look at a new challenge with fresh, inquisitive, skillful eyes and search out the details I need to help develop a distinctive and relevant solution.  So bring it on!

A Personal Note

This website is a sampling of my career experiences and artistic abilities.  I have many samples not included, and  at times more current work is available.  Please feel free to request more samples here.

I have been truly fortunate to have been able to spend the majority of my working years doing something I enjoy immensely, and to have worked alongside incredible, motivating individuals that have taught me more than I could ever have absorbed from a book or lecture.  Hard work but also so rewarding!

I am a native Californian, born in Hollywood and have resided in several areas of this beautiful state- from my childhood in Thousand Oaks to San Rafael in the upper S.F. Bay area to the mountains by Yosemite to my current location in a Historical District of Pasadena. I love the artzy architecture of many Southern California areas and have a true love of all things in nature, especially plants and animals.  Working in the garden or reading by my koi pond helps balance the many hours of computer work!

Highly Recommended

Master skills attained throughout a successful career in creative design including web-based business, game development, marketing, educational applications and trial support.

MANAGEMENT

• Website and software development team leader with multiple depts./clients
• Creative direction and management of print, design, and interactive teams
• Project coordination, task scheduling and complete asset management
• Development of successful marketing strategies, effective collaborator
• Consultant and designer for graphic corporate and litigation presentations
• Develop and document best practices for project efficiency/dev processes
• Mentor and support team members to enhance skills and productivity

CREATIVE

• Hands on art direction and production abilities
• Interactive user interface and user experience design, including website flow charts
• Website design including visual integration, marketing ads and email blasts, specialty apps
• CD-ROM and online game development (interactive 2D/3D, educational and entertainment)
• Graphic design- brand identity, advertising campaigns and interactive application
• Presentation graphics and animations for trial support, corporate sales and training
• Freehand illustrative and concept sketching art skills; Painting & 3D crafting abilities
• Marketing copywriter and professional copy editing

INDUSTRY TOOLS

• Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, Dreamweaver, InDesign, Premiere Pro, Encore), Prezi, Quark, previous 3D programs
• Acrobat Pro, Microsoft Office (PowerPoint, Word, Excel, Outlook, Project), PC, and MAC OS

And YES, I can draw! Which comes in very handy when sketching out design and layout ideas.