My past projects~

VERY varied work history

Graduating with a Bachelors Degree in Home Economics with a specialization in Interior Design, I began my working career as a Kitchen & Bath Designer/Salesperson. From there and to when I got into the Education realm, I had some really interesting work positions. Through all of these, I was able to practice and hone my Graphic Design skills doing posters, brochures, ads, etc. in my various job roles. What you see below represents just SOME of the cool projects I've been a part of and things I've created in my career. ~RLA~

  • Kitchen & Bath Designer/Salesperson

  • Furniture Store Designer/Store Display Designer

  • Appliance & Cabinetry Expert

  • Adjunct/Assistant Museum Curator

  • Community Relations Manager/Event Planner

  • Mentor/Trainer

  • Quality Assurance Reviewer

  • Nutrition Family Consultant/Programmer

Examples of my Art, Interior & Graphic Design work~

Remember, many of these were created when things were done mostly on paper and not electronically! And in most situations, I only had to work with what programs, I or the employer had. Generally this was Microsoft Publisher.

Valpo Reads a Book promo materials

Each of these are posters I created for events I created and successfully executed and garnered additional revenue for the store/company. Wedding Planning event, Treasure hunt event for when that hyped book was released, a local children's book author and illustrator and one of our employee's hobbies and tied in with her demonstrating and selling related books.

WVLP Event Poster

I volunteer for a local nonprofit, community Radio Station, WVLP and they were having a fundraising event. I offered to design the promotional poster for it.

Graphic Design examples~

Museum Brochure

My city's Civic "Reads a Book" project promo materials. I volunteered to be on the committee and offered to design the promo materials for the event. They were available throughout town and handed out at businesses and schools, so ie. everywhere.

Museum Newsletter

I planned and created this brochure completely from scratch. I also worked at this local, historical museum, The Historical Society of Porter County and the NRHP building "Old Jail Museum." I was the Assistant & Adjunct Curator. I also helped to write the grant that secured the funding to get this brochure printed.

Insurance Co. Vendor Newsletters

The organization did not send out regular communications to its members, so as Assistant Curator I suggested we do. But that meant that I had to do everything. I wrote most of the articles (sometimes getting info from SMEs), did all the layout, hand-copied on a Xerox machine and folded them. Then I had to print labels for all members, unpeel them from the print sheet and add stamps to each and even deliver them to the post office.

Barnes & Noble's Brochures

This was an unusual career field for me, Quality Assurance for a company that did national Insurance "Replacement Cost" appraisals all over the country. My job as a QA was to review the Appraiser's reports for any errors. This meant I was comparing the pictures of the home they submitted vs what they chose for the report. At this position, I eventually later become a Mentor/Trainer, in charge of logistics & training new employees who came to our HQ. I also suggested the company have Newsletters. They wanted me to do two - one to outside vendor companies, which was sent to hundreds of partner companies we worked with; and the other was a smaller, more fun one just for employees. These pictures are the outside vendor one, an original iteration (lower) and a newer version (top). In the outside one, I did the layout and worked with articles from SMEs. The other, I did most of the articles and layout myself.

Barnes & Noble Event Promos

At Barnes & Noble, I was the CRM or Community Relations Manager, part of the Management Team at the store. It was my job to increase revenue through Institutional Sales and creating, planning and successfully carrying out fun and interesting literary related events. So once I created an event, I would make Brochures or Posters to help promote the event. I would also write ad copy for in store promotions, and send them to outside local media sources. Many of my events made the local newspapers and had journalists attend and take pictures. The events usually featured local dignitaries, but I did work with famous athletes, entertainers and government officials too.

Here are some more detailed materials for specific Events and Clubs I created. Adventure/Travel Club was an idea I had to get kids in over the summer. Each time they would attend they would learn about a different place and I of course picked out specific fun books that helped them learn about that place (for sale). After each one, they would earn a stamp for their passport book. There was posters, ad copy, passport book and bookmarks I created to help promote the event.

Harry Potter related promos

Picture Gallery (click on each to expand and scroll through). Using Photoshop, I wanted to make the human in the distance be at one of the 4 golden corners which is better for visual appeal. However, if the original .dng photo is panned over (to maintain a 16:9 aspect ratio) it would be missing details on the right. With Photoshop, it will create those details for you. This is my step by step process for doing that. I also edited the newly created area to match the quality of the original better.

When I was a CRM at Barnes & Noble, the Harry Potter books were coming out. They were world-wide literary events and as you can imagine, required extensive planning and promotion for months. There was a SIGNIFICANT push from the corporate office to do AS MUCH promotion of HP stuff as possible. In my area, I found out that the person who created the most popular HP fan site on the internet actually was close by (Emerson Spartz of Mugglenet. com). In those days, he was still reachable by email. I reached out to him to get him to come to our store, which he did. For the weeks leading up the HP#6 release, one reoccurring event that I created and executed was a weekly HP club. I came up with tons of games, trivia and activities. The worksheets to the right were things I designed 100%.

Adobe Products examples~

For the release of any HP book, B&N stores had a "Midnight Magick Party." So my manager wanted me to have as many fun activities as possible. I therefore came up with different fun stations throughout the store, seen here in the map I inserted in this brochure I designed from scratch. At each station, if the customer completed that activity, they would get a stamp on a HP passport. If they got all the stamps, they would receive a special prize. There were tons of "swag" provided by corporate office to hand out to customers throughout the promotion of the book release. We ended up having over 1000 people there that night!

When I was a Kitchen & Bath Designer/Salesperson, I had the occasion to work on some amazing homes/projects. This was a new custom home in an upscale neighborhood in my area. I met extensively with the client to hone their cabinetry and appliance choices. At the time I worked, we HAND-DRAFTED everything. Meaning, the designs you see to the left, I hand drew everything. Now, obviously we have computer programs that can easily create these perspectives, however, I knew and was taught how to hand draft. You see the overall birdseye perspective and the a few wall elevations.

My store manager would let us Kitchen & Bath Designer/Salespeople design new store displays. You try cram as much as you can so that customers can see as many cabinetry finishes and options, hardware options, countertops, etc. She wanted me to create a custom cabinet that would show that you could use "semi-custom" cabinetry to create a built-in, furniture looking piece. Here was what I designed. My handrawn perspective of what the display would look like, how the custom furniture piece needed to be constructed (for the installer) and the overall display birdseye perspective. It was very popular!

When our store was going to expand into the next bay of the strip mall where we located, once again, the Store Manager let us Designers submit designs for the expansion. My design was chosen. You can see my original proposal, and what the final design ending up looking like on the right. Once again, everything was hand drawn. I had to come up with a design that would allow us to incorporate as much of all the different materials that we sold. So I had to make room for all different kinds of plumbing, showers, surface materials, cabinetry, vanities; and in the front of the store, and the reason for the expansion, is so that we could show that the company also sold doors and windows. I had to leave quite a bit of space for those displays since they are large. In the back was where they wanted us to show off more items for bathrooms and related materials.

Kitchen & Bath/Interior Design examples~

One of my favorite things to do as a Kitchen & Bath Designer/Salesperson was to work with Builders. There, I had the most design freedom. This was for a Builder we worked with who was having a home in a local Parade of Homes tour. So obviously, the home had to be stunning in every way. You can see what the original kitchen plan on the blueprint called for at the top. Below was my hand drawn elevations and birdseye perspectives. The photos were how it turned out. I made sure to incorporate designs and features that were popular the the time: honey maple cabinetry stain, taller corner cabinets and a custom cabinetry hutch (built out of semi-custom cabinetry) at the end of the cabinet run. I also included room for an extended bar area and stools.

This was my second Best in Show winner artwork, circa High School. It is a very detailed (if you zoom in) view of a castle on the edge of a lake. As an Artist, I prefer landscapes with watercolors. I am very "dry" watercolorist and I love to paint water. Here I used one of my collection of sandcastle statues as the model for the castle. But I loved how the water turned out and most things have an incredible amount of detail in them. The picture went on to the state competition, but did not place there.

Artwork examples~

This was my first Best in Show winner artwork, circa Middle School. Kind of hard to tell, but it was the faucet and sink in our art room. The materials were a stainless steel sink with a shiny chrome faucet. Metallic materials are actually very difficult to depict in Art. For chrome, there is lots of blues, greys, whites and even greens and silvers. I tried to show the reflection in the faucet with the different colors there. It went on to the state competition but did not place there.

Edited image using Photoshop Raw .dng file on the left. Edited contrast, shadows, exposure, whites, blacks, color temperature, tint, vibrance and toned down the grain. I also added in a vignette effect (blurring the edges) to create a focus on the figure and waterfall in the middle.