Describe yourself in one sentence.

Always thinking.

Where do you work/go to school?

I work everywhere. 

Favorite program/tools to use for designing?

Conversation and my noggin. I don’t use any special tools, just my brain and collaboration with other people. I can tell you laughter is always part of the mix.

Design hero?

Margo Chase, Ed Illig, Bob Blass, Michael Beirut, Woody Pirtle, Massimo Vignelli, Dana Arnett, Curt Schreiber

Favorite thing to do outside of work?

Wait… there are other things to do? Just kidding… Puppies, Gardening, Yoga.

Favorite place in Indy?

My own backyard. 

How and why did you get involved with AIGA? Approximately how long have you been involved with the organization?

I attended my first Student Portfolio Day as a professional member, back in the late 90s—after Carlos Sosa, Scott Johnson and David Stahl fueled the Indy chapter. The chapter was in transition. I have always been inspired by the evolution of design as a profession and how impactful design-in-action is when you’re talking about it conceptually…the way you do on portfolio days. I must have shown some kind of crazy passion, because I was invited to step into chapter leadership as Stacy Kagiwada had to sadly step down as the president. We rebuilt the board. I loved the work our board did together (Melissa Hennessy, Martin Schliessmann, Mike Wilson, Tracy Nelston-Albertson, Scott Weber, Janet Trieshmann and Christy Barrett). They rocked it. We adopted this tradition of handing out a nice bottle of vino at the board meeting following an event—and in my last event as president of the Indy Chapter, Michael Beirut handed me a bottle of wine. It was such an amazing capstone of being on the board. A month later Ric Grefe sent me and autographed copy of Vignelli’s biography that I still treasure today… 😉

I stay involved because I believe that our profession is the root of all innovation—whether you call yourself a communicator or a designer, you have the ability to create and impact culture and that is a responsibility I take seriously and am going to always be interested in. : )

What are you currently working on?

Well, for the last week I have been migrating a charity to a centralized organizational gmail account. A crucial factor in their continued success—and having worked with them for quite a few years, we know how important it will be to continuing to support them. As a sidenote, have you ever taught an 85 year old how to set-up gmail on their phone and migrate their contacts and calendar?! LOL. While all that is happening we are also doing discovery on a national integrated merchandising program, finalizing a mobile app, crafting a website proposal for a school district with 30 different entities and preparing a communications audit for a new client. Look out!

Any projects you want to highlight?

Nope. Much of our work is covered by NDAs so we don’t talk much about it.