With my background in visual communication, I’ve found a true passion in bringing companies’ spirits and cultures to life through design and visual brand strategies. Throughout my career, I’ve had the great opportunity to collaborate with both start-ups and Fortune 500 companies to refine their branding and optimize their communication strategies.

In general, I was always interested in the creative, writing and design industry. In the early days, my primary focus was on educational design, but this passion would quickly move towards communication design.

As the Executive Director of Design at ArtVersion, I oversee all of our agency’s communications and am responsible for establishing partnerships with leading organizations, supporting key client initiatives, and innovative actions and platforms to scale best practices throughout the project lifecycle. My main focus is on keeping all the projects in a fluid motion and simplifying the workflow complexities.

To me, creativity means bringing both innovation and passion to every project. It involves maintaining a level of curiosity throughout the whole process and being open to exploring new and bold ideas.

A creative idea recognizes an opportunity and builds off a bold concept or strategic insights in order to provide meaningful solutions.

Our creative process is based on the idea that powerful design is about more than just aesthetics and needs to fulfill the purpose, functionality and long-term objectives of a business. It is all about using the design to effectively communicate an idea through engaging experiences.

My favorite part of the creative process is…“the process,” which happens in the form of strategy, organizational approach and developmental approach. Maintaining the integrity and refining these processes is key to successful campaign design.

My creative style is modern and simplistic but always focused on providing meaning and clarity.

Considering the quality of materials submitted and strong international competition, industry recognition such as this means a lot to us. Especially when the awarded work was evaluated amongst several other high-caliber projects on a global scale. This was a project that let our team’s talents shine through. We are proud of the results, proud of the recognition by MUSE Creative Awards and especially proud that we exceeded our client’s expectations.

The project consisted of an integrated re-brand for MediaBlink™ (https://www.mediablink.com/) including naming strategy, web domain acquisition and social media marketing, amongst other specialties. It has extended even further into the spotlight following MediaBlink™’s adaptive manufacturing shift and FaceShield™ (https://www.faceshield.com/) production in response to this year’s COVID-19 crisis.

MediaBlink™ is a company with a deep history and legacy spanning over fifteen years. We’re enthusiastic whenever we get involved with a company that aims to refresh their lifecycle and reflect the needs of today’s marketplace (this happens quite often). Earning their stakeholders’ stamp of approval on the re-brand and refreshed logo was an initial challenge but, once they were aligned on the design concepts, the project took off with enormous momentum.

ArtVersion is pleased to stay connected with the creative industry and participate in these awards highlighting our creative prowess. While we often submit to the International Awards Associate programs such as the Vega Digital Awards, this was the first time ArtVersion submitted to IAA’s MUSE Creative Awards. Because of the recognition amongst global competition, we look forward to further participation in the future.

My top three things about the creative industry are the ever-changing advancements through innovation, best practices, and standards. All three of these components pave the way for a bright creative future.

The United States is uniquely positioned in the creative industry because of the range of start-ups, mid-sized companies, large multi-national corporations and non-profit organizations with ambitious design goals. The entrepreneurial spirit and influence of the U.S. is what drives the creative industry forward.

With the COVID-19 crisis turning heads in 2020, the creative industry should take a larger leap into the health space over the next 5-10 years. Consumers are now placing more of an emphasis on health than they did before and, because the topic is relatable to just about everyone (and their futures), it isn’t going away. With costs of medical procedures rising, the focus is likely to go hand-in-hand with health technology that improves quality of life. Additionally, virtual learning and online education has a great chance to continue its rapid pace of growth in the coming years. Similar to health, online education relates to a wide range of audiences and is a key revenue opportunity for all sorts of brands that are both established and up-and-coming.

Be conscious of the way in which design spans across several disciplines and categories. No matter what your passions are, design has relevance. From brand strategy to product strategy to website architecture to e-commerce to experiential, it’s everywhere.

For aspiring creatives, Adobe Creative Suite is a tremendous resource to improve skills. These programs are used (and preferred) by the most respected creatives in the world, so they’re essential when it comes to learning web design and user experience strategies. Additionally, SEM Rush is a comprehensive platform for measuring brand performance on search engines. For any content enthusiast, SEM Rush can take your approach to the next level. Lastly, familiarity with WordPress can add value for creatives that also want to learn more about web development.

For both brands and creative businesses, it’s important to be nimble and adaptive in your creative approach. In ArtVersion’s early days, the creative demand was related to designing for print. While we still design for print, our strategy had to shift as the demand for digital services and web design became more prominent. While don’t know exactly what that next generational “shift” will be, we’re prepared to acclimate to the marketplace in order to remain innovative about our services.

ArtVersion appreciates the recognition by the International Awards Associate’s panel of judges, for both the MUSE Creative Awards and the VEGA Digital Awards. We are honored to be included as a leading creative agency and look forward to crossing paths again in the future!