I am a Creative. It is how I think, how I view the World, how I process life. I don’t mean to be obnoxious, but why must it be the way it WAS? Why don’t I just paint it THIS way this time? Why don’t we create 5, 15.5’ x 2’ wall murals to explain your company’s commitment to creative product development instead of yet another PowerPoint slide show (gross)? Let’s let your team almost literally WALK THROUGH your process instead of just watch it on a screen!It can always be different, right? And there’s ALWAYS another way. I’ll never know—WE’LL never know—until we try. Let’s poke the bear until a new idea pops up, and then chase it—and when another new idea pops up, we’ll chase it, too!I am a Visual Translator (thank you, Lou Carbone, the father of Experience Engineering, for giving me my best job title EVER!). I take—WE take—your ideas, your consumer’s feelings, your research verbatims, the streams of words spoken or scribbled on bev naps—and make them Visible! I can SHOW you how your consumers FEEL, how a new cereal made with guar gum and coconut and shaped like a frog might look, how a high protein on-the go snack food could become a wearable. I am a graphic designer, new concept developer, Ideation Facilitator, copywriter, cartoonist, sculptor and painter & almost always a friend to small animals (but that ONE dog…).I’ve designed consumer packaging graphics; multiple lines of gift wrapping, party goods & stationery; nearly everything that 3M ever sold with Post-it brand adhesive on the back & graphics on the front; home goods & floor coverings; written & directed TV commercials & Web ads; coloring books for kids; designed and written in-pack instructions for women’s personal hygiene products; worked with international licensors to develop new products while following 200-page style guides; taste-tested and rated dog food; been on teams to create new restaurants; and we excel at Hispanic marketing translation & communications: ¡Es Cierto!For starters.

We help existing businesses and non-profit groups refine existing endeavors, particularly those that have experienced brand drift. We repair those that have major problems, and help to inspire new ideas, products and services for those who see or seek new opportunities. Our collective strengths and experience are magnified by our years of working together. Synergy and all that...We partner with our clients to provide usable, innovative solutions and create a plan and pathway that they can use after our given project is completed. Surprising. Successful. Marketable. We love to pull rabbits out of hats.

I take ideas, wishes and consumer tension points and translate them into VISUALS I listen to, take in and divine your needs, challenges and Ideas. I listen to your consumer and customer tension points––their feelings, concerns and needs––and capture them in drawings. Together, we create a vital tool that you present back to them and other consumers for further response mining. They will respond to those which fit, giving you a powerful, focused launching point for further discussion. This results in a richer understanding of whom they are as a consumer. And WHY. All good new concept and product development starts with consumers. We don't come up with a product and then hope to find a market for them––"We know best so you must buy." That's vertical, standing on the mountain top and talking down to them. Truly relevant new concepts, products and services are born horizontally, cooperatively: "You know what you need; we've listened and created what you want––and more!" We start, you and I, by listening to consumers and how they work, eat, live and find out what works for them, why and why not, and where they have un-met needs and desires––the Tension Points in their lives––which will provide us opportunities for new products and services which they will embrace not because they are new or pretty but because they are born to resolve their tensions. Right. Where. They. Live.My illustrations capture these Tension Points, these Moments and Circumstances with a sense of humor––not to be funny but because relating with humor is simply and delightfully more human than grilling consumers about why they sing while they eat or if they wear tennis shoes to bed. When you present my illustrations––directly drawn from their verbatim comments––they smile, they chuckle and they laugh––and that intrinsic barrier between researchers and consumers cracks. We become less Us & Them and more like people just having a chat. It is incredibly powerful and effective. IT WORKS.

Market-driven package graphic design, product design, surface textile design, Ideation facilitation, marketing and collateral design, restaurant concept development, POS, copywriting, publication design, photo direction and leading creative teams to enable them to do their best work doing the same with me across a wide variety of clients and businesses