My journey broght me to Spain in November, 2007. I've continued working as a freelance design consultant for various clients in America and Spain. I've developed marketing campaigns and updated the branding for the oldest English academy in Valencia, provided UX/UI design for a European Union video game project aimed at helping doctors treat patients with Alzheimer's, created brochures and posters for the annual toy design competition hosted by the Spanish Technological Toy Institute AIJU and provided design solutions for a conference for Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business.

I moved from the arts & crafts industry to RC2 Corporation/Learning Curve, a division of TOMY toys. I managed all the graphics and related budgets for the infant toy department. I developed and implemented playful new branding with whimsical iconography for product features, beautiful and functional packaging, clever advertisements and an informative styleguide for the Lamaze™ toy line. I coordinated and art directed professional photoshoots. I interviewed, hired and directed freelance designers, illustrators and production artists to meet tight deadlines while maintaining budgets.

While moonlighting as an art director, I maintained a full-time job as a senior graphic designer with Fibre-Craft Materials. My innovative packaging designs earned me the role of lead designer in charge of applying styleguide rules for Nickelodeon® and Scooby-Doo™ licenses and maintaining communication to ensure design approvals to meet tight deadlines. I managed the inhouse photo studio and provided quality digital product photography. I also trained, supervised and provided direction for the graphic designers and production artists on the team.

J. Schlegel Marketing closed it's doors in October of 2002 and restructured as a freelance consultancy. I was asked to continue as a freelance art director at the request of our clients and the owners. I worked on beautiful trade show booth designs, classy product launch spec sheets for medical instruments and professional restaurant equipment, inspired catalogs for the largest distributor of garden decor in the Midwest, luxurious branding solutions for an upscale at-home health care service and wowed our clients with modern brochures, illustrations and website solutions.

From there, I took the leap to art director with J. Schlegel Marketing. I managed a team of 2 designers and provided art direction and design solutions for clients ranging from multi-billion dollar utility companies to local health care facilities. I created attention grabbing direct-mail campaigns, clever brand identities, informative business collateral, playful environmental graphics, an innovative interactive touch-screen kiosk and unique packaging. I presented concepts to clients and worked directly with them to provide the best service and designs necessary for each project.

My next step was to move on to a graphic design position with Hu-Friedy, a world leader in dental instrument manufacturing. I expanded my knowledge of print design by designing advertisements, logos, catalogs, promotional campaigns, product launches and packaging for a wide variety of dental and medical instruments. I used my knowledge of batch processing to bring the design of a pricelist inhouse, saving the department time and money. I also created a printed version of an instrument sales kit, bringing the cost down from $500 to $20 per kit.

My career began with NTC/Contemporary Publishing Group in 1998. I worked as an image specialist: scanning, photoshopping and color correcting images. I created vector art for logos and graphics and designed several book covers. My biggest contributions to the design department were creating an efficient cataloging system for the images and producing a tutorial on batch processing large quantities of images in Photoshop.