Graphics Designer, Digital Editing, Freehand Illustration

• College: University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
  Major: No Desgrees
  Graduated: NA

• High School: White Bear Lake H.S.
  Graduated: 1966

• Company: Midway Party Rental
  Position: Web Manager, Graphics Designer
  Description: (Full > Part-time > currently by Project) Maintain & enhance Web site & designed promotional graphics for ads, flyers, web & catalogs. Organized their entire photo database creating a functioning usable marketing tool for their sales force. Required much editing to make images usable.
  Location: St Paul, MN
  From: 12/2006 - 2/2009
  
• Company: Unisys Corporation
  Position: Graphics Designer
  Description: My role was handling most of the production art and short-deadline projects, business presentation graphics, marketing proposal art, production layout, posters, banners, and the later 10 years doing technical illustrations for Product Information for both print and web media. Emulating the illustration styles for everything from cartoons to technical illustrations and following branding guidelines & templates in a team of 5-10 designers was essential. One assignment included style-checking 100+ html web pages against unfamiliar style sheet for a user interface design. The style sheets were becoming unwieldy because many different programmers were allowed to add new styles at will, often duplicating styles and making load time unnecessarily long. I initiated a VISUAL SAMPLE guide of all the styles and revamped the CSS using abbreviated styles eliminating unneeded code and allowing the interface to load and run faster. A side benefit of supporting Product Information was that I learned a whole lot about MSWord Templates, several CMS applications, and even worked a brief time with several CAD & 3D applications (AutoCad, 3DMax, ProE). We also had a couple years where we produced video multimedia pieces which added Adobe Premiere, Sony Soundforge, and the basics of videography to my repertoire. My career with Unisys evolved from drafting table, to Computer and a wide exposure to a good variety of tools and graphics applications. HONORS / AWARDS (while at Unisys) 1) 2003-4 - The Intermountain Chapter of The Society for Technical Communication Merit Award – Publications Competition 2) 1976 - Achievement of Excellence Award (presidential), one of very few given out. Special because of nominations by fellow designers. 3) 1999, 2002 - Appreciation Awards 4) 1996, 1994, 1991 1989, 2 1988 - Achievement of Excellence Certificates 5) 1976 - Community Service Award
  Location: Roseville, MN
  From: 11/-0001 - 5/2006
  
• Company: Taymark Corporation
  Position: Production Artist Part Time - summer seasons
  Description: Created graphics for glassware, pencils, and other souvenir items. Here the focus was on SIMPLICITY and CLARITY and the ability to cram 10-pounds of information into a 5-pound space and have it look good, make sense, yet have enough detail to convey all the critical information. Meeting short deadlines and familiarity with fonts was a MUST. [Months worked is a guess]
  Location: White Bear Lake, MN
  From: 8/1998 - 8/2000
  

Hometown: Lino Lakes / Hugo / Forest Lake area
Likes: I like working on my own - but in a support role best. Respect honesty and straight forwardness. Organizing things. Simplifying complex instructions visually. Telling a story with images. A cappella music. Musicals. Theatre. Reading. Good clean humor. Historical romances with an arcane mystery. A good belly laugh. A peanut butter toast with liver sausage.
Dislikes: Conflict, dishonesty, office/country politics, hipocrits, and disrespect. Fish, seafood, too much boring physical exercise. Dealing with financial information and taxes. To see people depressed, hurting, fighting, or sad.
Hobbies: Sweet Adelines, reading, watching movies, researching my family tree, visiting family and friends.
Strengths: Fairly intelligent, self-motivated, honest and straight-forward with a good work-ethic. Mostly right-brained, but practical enough to know my own limitations. Used to dealing with short deadlines. An artist with enough computer savvy and experience to know when and where to seek help.
Weaknesses: If given too many things to do at one time, I tend to get off track and be less productive. Need to be given priorities and deadlines. Sometimes a little intimidated/ don't like to ask for help when I know I need it.
Goals: To continue to support myself doing something I've always enjoyed - creating good simple functional design. Don't have to make a mint, or save the world, just enhance it a little. Maybe simplify someone's life by making the instructions easy to follow.

Resume:[View Resume]