Skills & Qualities:
Typography, layout, illustration, photography, visualization.

Computer Skills:
Quark XPress, Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat, Final Cut Pro, Premiere, Dreamweaver, Flash, GoLive, HTML, Director, AfterEffects, LightWave.

Professional Experience:
J.R. Navarro and Associates. Production Artist. Designing national print ads for Wells Fargo and updating the company website.
VNU Media Publications: Art Director: ACTION: The Independent Filmmakers Resource, a quarterly supplement to Back Stage West. Production Artist: Back Stage West. Conceived and designed in-house ad campaigns for special issues and special events for Back Stage West, as well as cover designs, cartoons, layout, client ads, print and web.
Freelance Graphic Designer - Logos, Movie Posters, Illustration, Catalogues, Stationery, Print Ads, etc. Clients include Diversity Pictures, Piero Dusa Acting Conservatory, Spoon Thai Restaurant, Thai Chili House, GotPrint.com, First Impression Printing, Ink Advertising.
MediaClips, Video Editor - Supplied copies of news and programming to clients primarily in the publicity industry, using Adobe Premiere, Tape-to-tape and Power Point.
Teaching Assistant & Tutor, Platt College - Assisted Graphics I instructor, and tutored Quark, Illustrator, Photoshop and Lightwave.

Education:
Platt College - Associates Degree in Graphic Design, Certificate Degree in Multimedia Design. Completed in February 2004. Earned Outstanding Student Award and named Valedictorian.
U.S.C. - Composition for the Music Industry, a one-year program in film scoring, completed in Spring of 1988.
Loyola University, New Orleans - Bachelor of Music Theory and Composition with a Secondary Concentration in Communications, completed in Spring of 1987.

Bio:
Born in New Orleans, LA, October 5, 1962. I'm divorced and have one son. Both of my parents were musicians/music teachers. I was the second of six and the only one who pursued music as a profession. I tried for years to get into film scoring but finally gave up trying to make a living at music in 2000.

Graphic Design had been on the back-burner in my mind all those years. I had taken an elective while I was a music major and liked it a lot. Photography was also an aspiration while I was in high school as I was on the yearbook staff for three years. When I decided to go back to school I first started at a community college, taking graphics, photography and art courses. But in 2002 I decided to get very serious about the career change and enrolled in Platt College.

After a year and a half at Platt, I earned my AA degree, the Outstanding Student Award and was named Valedictorian. That year I did an internship, several freelance jobs and started at Back Stage West as a part-time/temp/freelance production artist. There I was assigned to come up with inventive ad campaigns for special issues, as well as typesetting and pre-flighting client ads. Eventually I became a full-time employee and Art Director for their short-lived quarterly glossy, ACTION.

Currently I'm working at the ad agency, J.R. Navarro & Associates, and still doing some freelance.