about me.
My journey into design began 9 years ago when I took a job as an administrative assistant for a national real estate magazine. It started with taking word document flyers that had no images at all and altering them by designing catchy, visually interesting flyers using Power Point. This is where my passion for design and creativity really started to grow.
Next, I assisted the production manager with elementary creation of the publications communicating with off-site designers. Several years later, I stepped into the role of the production manager and within a year, the company had moved to localized design with Quark. I taught myself the program and began expanding my creativity. The opportunity to come up with new looks for the clients, first-hand, was invigorating.
Over the past four years in the Production Manager position, I have learned Photoshop, Illustrator, Quark XPress and InDesign and used those tools to create print advertising, marketing flyers and postcards, email campaign images, logos, trade show pieces, thank you & holiday cards and internet tower ads. I also used PowerPoint for presentations, and created a training video. I have used both PC and Mac platforms.
I realized that designing was my passion and felt I should explore this as a career. While exploring the field, I realized that a useful designer needs to be fluent in both print and electronic media. Customers need logo design, business cards and a website.
I began with a simple introduction class in Dreamweaver. From there the ball started rolling and within a few months, an opportunity came along to work with a nationally ranked dance studio for their web design/maintenance needs, thus SmellyKat was born.
In August 2009, I completed a certificate in Web Development from the Community College of Aurora. I have expanded my knowledge of web design and development, using Adobe Dreamweaver and Flash. This has helped me expand my design, creativity and overall base as a designer.
Please stop by the contact page if you are interested in working with me. Thank you for visiting my site.
Kim,
President, SmellyKat, Inc.