I began working at AldenEm shortly after arriving in San Diego. I was brought in to lead the interactive arm (the "Em" part of "AldenEm"). They had a lot of online corporate brochures and an e-commerce site or 2 in their portfolio when I started.
My duties included all aspects of a project life-cycle, including: creating proposals, defining project architecture and parameters, defining and managing budgets, presenting to clients, designing websites and interactive presentations, client-side and server-side programming, animation, testing, project management and developer mentoring. I learned a ton about project management and tech on my own in this position.
The interactive group stayed relatively small, but didn't atrophy with the other groups as the company "downsized". There were nearly a dozen print designers and art directors when I started, but this eventually dwindled down to 2 by the time I left.
I was lucky enough to work with some incredibly talented designers at this agency, including the Creative Director Jim McWilliams. Jim taught at Cooper Union and was a design giant from the days when layouts were composed with matte knives. My understanding of design theory increased exponentially. I still hear Jim's voice bark principles of good design ("...no no NO! use an em-dash!") in my head when I'm working on a design.
My duties included all aspects of a project life-cycle, including: creating proposals, defining project architecture and parameters, defining and managing budgets, presenting to clients, designing websites and interactive presentations, client-side and server-side programming, animation, testing, project management and developer mentoring. I learned a ton about project management and tech on my own in this position.
The interactive group stayed relatively small, but didn't atrophy with the other groups as the company "downsized". There were nearly a dozen print designers and art directors when I started, but this eventually dwindled down to 2 by the time I left.
I was lucky enough to work with some incredibly talented designers at this agency, including the Creative Director Jim McWilliams. Jim taught at Cooper Union and was a design giant from the days when layouts were composed with matte knives. My understanding of design theory increased exponentially. I still hear Jim's voice bark principles of good design ("...no no NO! use an em-dash!") in my head when I'm working on a design.
