Madison, Wisconsin, United States
Versatile graphic designer with diverse skills, a proven track record, and the ability to perform well independently and as a team player. I have had the opportunity to please a broad range of customers with all levels of expectations, and successfully and consistently meet deadlines under the heaviest of workloads. In each position that I’ve held, I have been widely known as a reliable and well balanced designer and employee. I am often the designer that staff members from other departments seek out for help because of my consistent positive attitude, willingness to help, and ability to do a great job in a short amount of time. I feel that my many experiences have helped me become a very well rounded designer that possesses the leadership and communication skills that are needed for any new creative venture.
• Prepare client files for output on color offset, wide format, and digital presses. • Preflight digital files, check the components and integrity of files, create postscript and PDF files. Impose files if necessary. • Advanced image editing and color management with Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Acrobat and Enfocus Pitstop. • Able to communicate knowledge clearly, accurately and thoroughly. • Able to meet deadlines, work under pressure, and problem solve independently. • Work directly with external customers, customer service representatives and designers to satisfy their expectations. • Work in the design department when extra help is needed, utilizing my many years of senior designer experience.
• Work with procurement staff to list expected deliveries. • Receive shipments and sign paperwork upon receipt. • Unload packages from incoming trucks and inspect contents to ensure they are undamaged. Forklift certified. • Verify packages according to order and invoices (quantity, quality, price etc.). • Maintain quality and safety standards.
• Collaborate with marketing, sales and press to monitor budget, schedule, and quality for each project. • Fluent in prepress, printing, and bindery terminology and methodologies. • Prepare and preflight files for many different types of print media. • Various customer service duties include handling front counter service, answering phones, meeting with new customers, and in-process correspondence with clients. • Stay up to date with industry trends.
• Execute many of our more complex projects, manage the workload and staff of the design/prepress department, delegate projects, and provide support for other members of the team. • Collaborate with other departments to ensure a excellent customer outcome. • Essential customer service duties including handling in-person service, answering phones, and ongoing correspondence with clients. • Able to successfully deliver large multi-component design projects while balancing many other tasks and responsibilities.
• Responsible for the design, layout and creation of print and digital products. • Occasionally served as backup to the creative services supervisor. • Ad account list included some of the newspaper's most complex and demanding accounts. • Often sought out by upper management with special sales projects when they needed high end speculative designs to propose to prospective clients. • Consistently went above and beyond expectations for customers and sales staff to ensure that everybody was happy with the services that I provided to them.
• Responsibilities included leading and directing a staff of graphic designers and paginators in the creation of advertisements and pages for multiple central Wisconsin newspaper publications. • Provided skill assessment, training, coaching and personal development for staff members. • Served as a working manager, designing ads when needed. • Daily upkeep of complex equipment and various IT related troubleshooting. • Developed and administered individualized training programs which led to skill level advancement for several designers. • Developed plans for and implemented new software and equipment which allowed the department to stay up to date with current software and technology.
• Responsible for the design of newspaper ads, logos, direct mail pieces, and many other promotional materials. • Top level designer responsible for mastering new software applications for the purpose of training other designers in the Madison, Beaver Dam, Portage and Mauston offices. • Layout, design and pagination of special section publications. • Quickly worked my way up to Level 4 status within my first few years with the company (the top skill level out of 4). Only 2 designers out of 16 achieved this skill level.