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UI Design • Art Direction • Graphic Design • 2D Game Art • Illustration • Environment Design
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OVERVIEW

I'm a passion-driven art director and visual designer with 20 years of experience in the gaming and entertainment industries. Helping my teammates cross the finish line, contributing to a product’s success, pitching in to solve problems, and delighting users with a great experience are the things that get me excited to work every day.

North Star Games
Art Director, UI/UX Designer
October 2015 - Present

Launched the Evolution Digital Board Game, now ranked #1 Board Game App of 2019 by Ars Technica and played by hundreds of thousands of fans. I joined the team as a UI artist and eventually grew to take over the art direction of the project and guide the look and feel of all aspects of the game’s visuals, and led our lean, mean art team of five. Tackling a multi-platform launch, I merged the original board game's watercolor art style with a fresh new painterly aesthetic and 3D world that brought the 2D experience to life. I contributed to all aspects of the game art including user interface design, UX planning, 3D modeling, 2D texture art, shader design, VFX, graphic design, and illustration. I also had the opportunity to develop the game’s website, evolutionvideogame.com, and launch our lively discord community.

Stormwood Designs
Partner, Founder
March 2012 - Present

Stormwood is a digital content brand for the SecondLife platform that started as a passion project and grew into a really fun business that’s still generating revenue. I worked in conjunction with my partner in designing, creating, texturing, and marketing digital 3D mesh content for sale online. Content includes decorative props and wearable 3D mesh goods that can be purchased in-game.

Stringwire, NBCUniversal
Senior Lead UI / UX Designer
March 2014 - Sep 2015

During the exciting and newly emerging mobile streaming movement, I helped race an innovative app called Stringwire to market that made anyone a news broadcaster to the NBC Newsroom in just a few taps on their phone. I managed and hired our team of contract and offshore designers, oversaw and drove the creative direction of the product, developed marketing materials, and pitched in with every day design tasks like icons and vector art, style guides, logos, wireframes, final mockups, flow diagrams, deck presentations, and solved complex UI challenges.

Astrology.com, NBCUniversal
Senior Lead Designer, Astrology.com
October 2008 - March 2015

Over the course of 7 years I was a key contributor in the revitalization and resurgence of a dying lifestyle brand from the 90’s, transforming Astrology.com into a modern, fresh, approach to astrology which led to its ultimate success and eventual acquisition. I joined the team as a contract graphic designer working on art assets for the web product, and grew into the role of Senior Lead Designer, where I lead the redesign of the entire website, designed and shipped three astrology-related mobile entertainment apps, optimized their funnel for a 30% increase in conversions, redesigned their UI site-wide to be responsive, revamped their email marketing campaign design for 30mm subscribers, generating a significant increase in click-throughs and sales. I gained a tremendous amount of experience in this role with UI/UX and marketing.

Self-Employed
Freelance Designer
August 2006 - October 2008

On my quest to break out of QA and follow my design dreams, I launched a freelance design business with a focus on web design, mobile app interface design, photo editing, logo / branding design, advertising, and print/packaging materials for local businesses in the bay area. During this time I taught myself how to use the Adobe suite, web development, UI design and prototyping, and the principles of printing. I learned with every new project I took on, and this was my most formative change in career.

LucasArts
QA Analyst
August 2002 - August 2006

Dubbed the “UI Guru”, I contributed as a QA Analyst on world-class AAA titles for console and PC with a special focus on game interfaces and HUDs. I intentified bugs, performed database reporting, regression testing, compatibility testing, and multiplayer / network testing, and eventually specialized in usability and worked with internal development teams to help improve the UX of interfaces. One of my favorite titles, Battlefront II on the PC, went on to win an award for Best User Interface from IGN.

Realm of Mystara
Owner & Founder
September 2009 - April 2015

Based on the open-source Dungeons & Dragons campaign, and hosted on SecondLife private server simulators, I founded the online MMO gaming community Realm of Mystara in 2009. I developed the 3D environment and terrain, the gaming rules and structure, website and support materials, as well as managed a community of nearly 6000 players, 35 mentors, 40 group leaders and 15 administrators and held the position of #1 roleplaying community on the grid for several years, in terms of traffic, engagement and community size. I learned how to both manage a community, and keep a large team focused and working well together, and I believe running it has given me some of the most valuable experience of my life.