The Creative Generalist

I’ve been lucky enough to work creatively in the online and interactive industry for most of my life. During that time, I’ve done a little of everything: Designing CBS’ Entertainment Tonight Online, producing MTV’s video games website, promoting TV Land’s original programming and developing unique visual designs used across IBM’s 12 global research labs.

When I was younger, I sought just about every creative outlet you can name:  Drawing, painting, writing – anything. I was that kid who actually liked writing essays and looked forward to art class. At that same time, I developed a love affair with the cinema. As an honors NYU Film student, I focused on screenwriting and the art of visual storytelling.

When I “grew up” (that’s debatable), I found I was able to translate my visual and written creativity to the online/interactive industry. My diverse background has fostered a willingness to learn and an ability to adapt – proving that core, transferable creative know-how is more important than any single technical skill.  Knowing what looks good and reads well is 1000x more valuable than being skilled at using a particular piece of software.

A sense of humor and lack of ego are among my best qualities: “Hard to work with” and “temperamental” are not in my vocabulary (well, they are, but you get it). I learned a long time ago that you can’t take things personally when you work creatively, and criticism, while harsh, is usually a good thing.

Lastly, if an uncanny knowledge of Seinfeld, 80s-90s music and video games happen to be job requirements, let’s talk.

Design

I’ve been an artist for as long as I can remember – from painting and drawing all the way to being a Photoshop professional. I enjoy all types and stages of design: Sketching with real-world media, creating detailed mockups/layouts for apps/sites in Photoshop, retouching, branding, logo creation – all of it interests me.

I’ve had the privilege of contributing to the design and/or being the sole lead designer on a variety of high-profile projects. The following is a just a small sampling of companies/brands I’ve worked with:

Sundance Channel
CBS Online Store
Entertainment Tonight Online
Nickelodeon Games and Sports
TV Land Online Promotions
IBM ThinkLab Interactive Galaxy
IBM Research Initiatives

To see some selected examples of my past work, visit my presence on Behance.net

Production Art

A production artist commonly integrates new and changing graphics, content elements into an already-existing design framework.

Example: One of the roles I had while at Nick at Nite’s TV Land Online was integrating a wide variety of video, graphics, retouched photos, show-specific designs and personally written editorial content into an existing style and content map.  This role was invaluable when relaunching the entire site using fresh content and a newly launched content management system (CMS).

While creating a design from the ground up is extremely rewarding, bringing a design to life by infusing it with content is really exciting. I’ve been lucky enough to use this subset of skills for the following clients:

MTV Emerging Artist Project
Paramount Stations Group
Blockbuster Entertainment
MTV Video Games
TV Land Online
IBM Research THINKLab Visual Environment

Storyboarding / Information Architecture

One of the most exciting and fulfilling roles is conceptualizing how a site or interactive project will work: Who is the audience? How will they use this? What goes where? How is the content organized? Today, these concepts are commonly referred to as UX design, Information Architecture and Design Thinking. It all sounds very technical, but at its core, it simply means making something usable for the people who will be using it.

One of my most rewarding experiences was working as a lead Information Architect for MTV’s Emerging Artist project. The process of deciding how every aspect of the site worked was both challenging and compelling – from how one navigated the band database, to the granular specifics involved with how a user registration process. It may not sound exciting at first, but it’s incredibly rewarding when you’re “in the zone” figuring it out, and it all just clicks.

I’ve also enjoyed when I have the opportunity to hand-draw storyboards for a website or interactive initiative: Much like a storyboard artist in the film industry, the act of getting ideas down on paper in a visual, dynamic way is extremely important in conveying how something should operate. Some of my favorite storyboards were created during my tenure at the IBM Think Lab, where I was tasked with illustrating how users could potentially use a personalized presentation space.

Here’s a small sampling of the clients/companies I worked with as a UX/Information Architect/Storyboard artist:

Viacom Corporate
Blockbuster
MTV Emerging Artists
TNN (Later, SpikeTV)
IBM Think Lab Experience

 

Writing

In addition to design, I am extremely passionate about writing – sometimes even more so.

As a former NYU Film student and English minor, I was fascinated with the art of storytelling and conveying ideas clearly and creatively to a wide variety of audiences. I enjoyed writing in multiple mediums: Essays, short stories, long-form fiction, and of course, writing for the screen. The process of writing a screenplay is uniquely challenging, as it restricts the author to visual storytelling and relies heavily on anticipated audience interpretation. This uniquely prepared me for working in the interactive industry.

Professionally, I’ve been able to employ my skills as a writer in a multitude of ways: Editorial content, technical documentation, proposals, social media and even internal corporate documents. I’ve written in some capacity for the following clients/brands:

Viacom Corporate
Comedy Central
Showtime
MTV Emerging Artists
Nickelodeon Games and Sports
MTV Video Games
TV Land
IBM Research