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Selected Work

Blast From The Past

My journey as a creative person has been an evolution. I love learning new skills, collaborating with talented people, and being industrious. I invite you to browse through some hidden gems of my design past—enjoy!

The Bearable Lightness of Packing

Diane von Furstenberg Studio

I wear many hats as a creative person, and one of those hats is illustration. An opportunity arose while I was freelancing at DVF, so I was happy to contribute my skills for this video project, “The Bearable Lightness of Packing.” I worked with the art director, who collaborated with the agency, Valins + Co., to produce this video. I was challenged to think in a different way about design—for example, how one scene would transition into the next. It proved to be a rewarding experience and the video turned out to be very charming.

Beauty Watch

People

People is one of the best-selling magazines on the newsstand. I was proud to be part of the digital team there, responsible for the mobile and tablet experiences of the brand. Readers definitely get more when they read digitally: from bonus pictures to direct links to buying merchandise. The interactive features are built in, so the design truly comes to life.

This "Beauty Watch" page is a simple example of integrating interactive arrows and buttons, along with creating scrollable content.

Various Pages

Cosmopolitan

The iPad was relatively new, and media companies were figuring out how to streamline content for new mediums. I was brought on at Cosmopolitan to help implement how the digital tablet version of the magazine could function. It was an industrious time, designing multiple versions of pages and testing with the in-house technology team. The magazine itself had just undergone a major redesign. There were a lot of issues to resolve and delays that were beyond my control, as a freelancer. I ended up spending most of my time helping the editorial team produce the bread-and-butter print pages of the magazine, as seen below:

Glove Love

Chicago Magazine

This an old favorite portfolio pieces to share, because it is not an average fashion layout, with mere flat silhouettes of merchandise. The gloves were shot at a consistent angle in a studio, with the intent to appear to be “flying” over a blue sky. Once I experimented with placing the gloves over a blue sky background, it just looked too busy. Even though the original idea didn’t work out, the arrangement of the gloves still makes an intriguing page. Plus, since the gloves were shot at such a low angle, I was able to open up room on the page and allow them to get larger.

Covers

Newcity

Newcity is an alternative weekly newspaper based in Chicago, with a strong independent reputation, similar to The Village Voice. On a weekly basis, I had to brainstorm and produce covers. It was a huge step for me, to manage that responsibility, on top of laying out the newspaper and designing the occasional house ad. As exciting as it was to have complete creative control of a cover, it was very stressful at times. But I built my creative network extensively, collaborating with emerging Chicago talent in order to meet my deadline. I look back fondly on that time during my early career, which is why I still include these covers in my portfolio. Every cover has a story behind it!

Vintage Re-do

Pattern-making and Sewing

An original vintage dress (left) gets deconstructed into a pattern to make a new dress (right):

style inspiration

It's often hard to replace a classic design. Although I loved the warm camel color of the original dress, I was inspired by denim and chambray.

Beginning with vintage

After taking sewing and pattern-making classes after college, I embarked on a new side project: taking a beloved vintage dress, making a pattern from it, and sewing a new dress. The vintage dress was no longer wearable—it was damaged and very delicate. Instead of parting ways with the dress forever, I gave it new life, as a pattern to create a new version of the dress.

Making a pattern

I carefully used a seam ripper to disassemble the dress into the basic pieces, as seen below:
Then I traced each piece, added seam allowance around the edges, and made notes as needed.

Making a sample

I used muslin fabric to make a sample of my pattern. This helps me practice the pattern and test it. The sample ended up fitting perfectly, so I didn't need to make any adjustments.

Sewing the final dress

The successful sample gave me confidence to sew my pattern using real fabric. The process was meticulous and long, but the end was result was incredibly rewarding!
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