I've been a designer my whole life.

What has developed into a life in graphic design began as a fascination with letters and their shapes from the time I was a little kid. I was very much influenced by how I was taught cursive handwriting while attending a French school in Detroit; I recognized the soft differences between the European and American hand pretty quickly and drew the shapes over and over.

This led to a lot of drawing and writing throughout my childhood, which lasted through high school. I wanted to attend an art school, but I wasn't aware of the existence of graphic design; I remember writing a paper at 15 about commercial art and advertising and thinking this was the industry that most closely matched my interests.

But after attending Michigan State University for year, I was turned off by the notion of advertising and sales, and instead spent a year and a half in Ann Arbor, studying photography and introductory design. With an elementary portfolio of photography, drawing, and graphic design, I was admitted to the College for Creative Studies in Detroit in 1998. I spent four intensive years studying typography and visual communications under professors from the Cranbrook and CalArts schools of design. During this time I had paid internships as an in-house designer at a public relations firm, a small studio, and a small advertising agency.

A few months after graduating with my BFA in 2002, I was hired as an in-house designer for Deloitte & Touche, a global professional services firm, where I designed new business proposals. For such a corporate environment there were definitely some creative opportunities, as we produced small numbers of the annual report-like proposals we designed ourselves. It was a good extension from college, where we also produced our own projects, and it became a great early exercise in publication design.

The firm transferred me to their New York offices in 2003, and I stayed another year there, until accepting a position as Senior Designer at indie women's magazine, BUST.

I spent two years at BUST laying out the front of the book and the majority of the features for the bi-monthly, full-colour, and internationally distributed feminist publication. I learned the complete ins and outs of publishing an independent magazine. During this time I also freelanced for a wide variety of clients in New York City, including theatre companies, non-profits, and fashion labels.

About six months before I moved to Australia, I studied type design at Cooper Union under Hannes Famira. I moved to Melbourne with my husband at the end of 2006 and began working at Raft Design in early 2007. There, I worked on publications for the Australian Broadcasting Company, re-designed Raft's identity, and developed the identity and related materials for the Melbourne Vixens—the new professional Victorian netball team.

Lastly, I've been very honored to be a part of Melbourne's buzzing and thriving design community, and have done freelance work for jewellery label This Charming Man, Ambiguous Horse, Is Not Magazine, the Bicycle Film Festival, Geelong Grammar School, and most recently, The National Gallery of Victoria.

I still spend a lot of time drawing letters.

You can download a PDF of my resumé here.

Contact me:
ecs@ihearttype.com

0410 240 485
03 9077 9193