Design Experience

Finished Art Inc., Atlanta, GA
Design Strategy Consultant / Designer    (10/11 – present)

Spear­head­ed the company’s web­site redesign, incor­po­rat­ing a blog and social net­work­ing tools to find a bet­ter way to share FA’s diver­si­ty and pas­sion with clients and poten­tial new busi­ness part­ners as well as give each team mem­ber the oppor­tu­ni­ty to grow and explore his/her inter­ests

Graphic Designer    (07/06 – 08/10)

• Designed pack­ag­ing, iden­ti­ty, POS, web­sites, dig­i­tal designs and mul­ti-page col­lat­er­al for inter­na­tion­al clients
• Man­aged client com­mu­ni­ca­tions and cre­at­ed project esti­mates
• Pre­pared files for print and worked close­ly with print­ers
• Col­lab­o­rat­ed with oth­er design­ers to devel­op ideas for nation­al cam­paigns

Gretchen Chern Design     (05/06 – present)
Freelance Designer

• Designed/built/maintained web­sites for new and grow­ing busi­ness­es
• Cre­at­ed inter­ac­tive tuto­ri­als in Flash for client pre­sen­ta­tions
• Logo design and invi­ta­tion Design

Visual Data Systems, Columbia, MD     (01/06 – 06/06)
Graphic Designer

• Designed/built web­sites and cre­at­ed CSS style sheets for rental prop­er­ty com­pa­nies
• Updat­ed inter­ac­tive maps for clients and con­tact­ed clients regard­ing month­ly changes
• Designed ani­mat­ed ban­ners for prod­ucts to be dis­played on cor­po­rate web­sites
• Cre­at­ed new, uni­fied prod­uct slip sheets for mar­ket­ing depart­ment

Student Events Board, University of Maryland, Baltimore County     (05/04 – 05/06)
Director of Promotions

• Cre­at­ed fly­ers, posters, t-shirts and oth­er pro­mo­tion­al mate­ri­als for var­i­ous stu­dent events on cam­pus
• Designed and main­tained the Stu­dent Events Board web­site
• Respon­si­ble for find­ing and con­tact­ing print­ers for large-scale jobs

Professional Awards/Mentions

39th Creativity Annual Awards – Gold Award Winner, Brochure Business to Business Category      (2009)

Coca-Cola holiday orb bottle designs featured on thedieline.com      (11/30/09)

Education/Honors

Savannah College of Art and Design     (09/10 – 09/11)
Savannah, GA
MA Design Management

• Gained expe­ri­ence devel­op­ing frame-chang­ing points of view that can cre­ate long-term val­ue through design
• Planned and exe­cut­ed con­tex­tu­al research stud­ies in order to dis­cov­er new design oppor­tu­ni­ties
• Increased skill in pre­sent­ing ideas through visu­al mod­els such as sketch­ing and dia­gram­ming
• Acquired a deep­er under­stand­ing of inno­va­tion and its role in grow­ing com­merce and chang­ing cul­ture
• Worked on col­lab­o­ra­tive teams to devel­op design and brand strate­gies
• Learned to facil­i­tate cre­ative think­ing ses­sions
• Attained knowl­edge of fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples of mar­ket­ing, finance and account­ing

University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)     (08/02 – 05/06)
Baltimore, MD
BA Visual Arts – Graphic Design; Art History Minor

• Grad­u­at­ed Magna Cum Laude
• Received Line­han Artist Schol­ar­ship award­ed for high artis­tic and intel­lec­tu­al abil­i­ty
• Named Alum­ni Association’s Out­stand­ing Stu­dent of the Year in Visu­al Arts, 2006
• Nom­i­nat­ed for UMBC’s Behind-the-Scenes Stu­dent Lead­er­ship Award in 2005 and 2006
• Nom­i­nat­ed for Stu­dent Employ­ee of the Year, 2006
• Nation­al Soci­ety of Col­le­giate Schol­ars, Gold­en Key Inter­na­tion­al Hon­or Soci­ety, Phi Kap­pa Phi Hon­or Soci­ety

Computer Skills

Highly Proficient on MAC and PC with the following software:

• Adobe CS5 (Pho­to­shop, Illus­tra­tor, InDe­sign, Dreamweaver, Flash, Acro­bat)
• Microsoft Office (Word, Pow­er­Point, Excel)
• Keynote
• QuarkX­Press

Web Skills Include:

• HTML, CSS
• Word­Press

“Gretchen is a detail-ori­ent­ed man­ag­er who watch­es the bal­ance sheet like a hawk with­out los­ing sight of the strate­gic objec­tive. She is able to work on mul­ti­ple projects from con­cept through the design and mechan­i­cal. She is a depend­able val­ued employ­ee that we count on to get the job done cor­rect­ly. She would be a val­ued asset and is high­ly rec­om­mend­ed.”

– Don­na John­ston, Pres­i­dent
Fin­ished Art, Inc.

“Gretchen is a plea­sure to work with. She is con­fi­dent and depend­able in the exe­cu­tion of a project. She has a great atti­tude and is very detail ori­ent­ed.”

– Daphne Brown, Account Man­ag­er
Fin­ished Art, Inc.