curriculum vitae

Diving back into the toy industry, I’ve once again found myself in a fast-paced, highly dynamic role developing solutions covering both engineering and design. Collaborating with Product Designers, Logistics, Quality Assurance, and Marketing disciplines, I am  continuing my snowballing expertise in retail packaging as well as producing packaging artwork for multiple brands.

• Real time packaging development in tandem with new product design
• Producing prototypes exploring creative directions while optimizing materials for increased sustainability, reduced waste, and competitive brand presence.
• Guiding suppliers and factories to ensure proper mass-production quality
• Press-friendly technical setup skills required for fast and easy mass production.

Expanding my reach into flexible packaging, I’ve gained a highly technical understanding of designing for flexo printed and formed poly films. Heavily involved in ensuring manufacturing accuracy through precision dieline design, I set the stage for intuitive, designer-friendly print layouts for high-speed mass production.

• Overhauled company wide dieline master layout standards for dimensional accuracy, visual clarity, and streamlined customer QC experience
• Coordinated with press and converter operators ensuring successful print and forming trials
• Worked with international customers developing package sizing, optimization on different bag machines and prototyped samples

Covering much more than the titles suggest, I had a wide gamut of responsibilities collaborating with product designers in one of the fastest and most demanding work environments in the toy industry.

My diverse experience at ORB Toys immersed me in market research, product concept exploration, creative structural design engineering, prototyping, and efficiency-driven refinement stages while under intense timelines. My time here was spent carving out a position that offers a blend of both engineering and artistic abilities, elevating the capabilities of the company.

• Product packaging and shelf display dieline design development, engineering, prototyping, and refinement, and strategic cost planning on a variety of substrates for factory mass production
• Production design and formatting for large-scale tradeshow graphics and printing in on-site printshop
• Extensive pre-press processing for press artwork handoff
• Printshop workflow using Esko i-Cut Production, Esko Layout Essentials, and Onyx RIP-Que software
• Operation and maintenance of Epson large format printers and Esko Kongsberg CAD cutting table operation

Collaboratively working within a marketing team, I helped strategically develop, design, and deliver both internal and client-facing promotional content. Driving business development to specific areas of law as well as establishing a strong brand presence in the wake of a total corporate rebranding prior to my arrival was at the core of my role. Much of the content I found myself developing required me to interpret multiple changing business objectives and creatively express my ideation into marketing concepts for proposals to the team.

• Establishing branding identity standards on a wide range of marketing collateral
• Developing strategically targeted brochures, booklets and advertising campaigns with Marketing Coordinators and Marketing Directors
• Designing and developing web content, client newsletters, event materials and HTML Email communications
• Managing print projects through all production and coordination stages

Working independently with small businesses and startups, I’m able to apply the growing skills and knowledge I’ve gained through my work experience to provide both print and digital media solutions. This freelance work allows me to constantly build my repertoire as a designer and challenge my angles of attack by diving into a variety of industries, each case needing a strategic, success-focused approach in ground-up development to be a smooth and painless experience for the clients.

• Meeting with clients to distill project objectives, strategy, execution, and marketed rollout stages
• Providing experienced based insights while listening to the client’s needs and pushing the best blend of both into the work
• Coordination, management, and quality control of any external production work
• Maintaining ongoing supportive relationships as the client requires