When I was a kid, I didn't like drawing what was right in front of me. Experimenting and bending reality was my personal definition of art. It's how I could express emotions and ideas differently than others and actually convey their significance. The strange concepts I couldn't piece together with normal tactics found life in my art.
When I was in high school, back in Maryland, I started my own brand. I designed flyers to take orders for the various bracelets and shirts I made. Throughout that process, I got hooked on the interaction with people and having the ability to connect and inspire others with my designs. There's not much I value more.
Below are some photos and product mockups from those early days. The first two images are shirts with graphics that I made in high school when I was first learning design. In the third photo, you’ll see the singing group Fifth Harmony. We were pretty excited when we got Lauren Jauregui one of the “Strength” shirts that my friend Sami Fego and I made. The fourth photo is my sister helping me sort out the rubber bracelets I had made with the words “make this dream a reality” on them. They were used to fund more shirt designs and the Zox bracelets that you see in the final image. That “Live To Inspire” Zox is still one of the most coveted by collectors. It was such an honor to have been able to collaborate with them over the years. Show them some love! They deserve it!
After my high school years, I started to explore a huge variety of different creative mediums and freelance work, on top of original creations. College was a big part of how I found the facets of design that I liked most, too. I went to Drexel University from 2012 - 2016 and graduated with a B.S. in Graphic Design (with focuses on photography and fine art outside of the core curriculum). I loved experiencing so many diverse mediums and absorbing the inspiring atmosphere that comes with being in Philadelphia. It allowed me to embrace experimental art styles in a new way and not feel too critical of myself. It got abstract and random and weird. And it helped me find new ways to approach design.
Since then, I’ve taken all of my diverse experience to transform and create a handful of brands, including my personal brand you see here. I have rebranded companies, developed retail lines, created product catalogs and websites from the ground up, worked on social media marketing, had advertisements and informational guides I made published in print and online, redesigned support websites, and much more. It has been an incredible journey to the present moment. I continue to study every day, always learning and employing new knowledge about brand strategy, UX, marketing, and the latest creative tools and trends.
You can find a few of the more recent projects I’ve worked on in my portfolio, and see more of the things I do on my Instagram and now, TikTok!
I’m always looking for creators to work with, so feel free to contact me! See the Services I offer, too if you are ready to start.
Thanks for reading! Remember: Live to inspire.