Q: What is your official title?
A: Senior Art Director
Q: What are some of your responsibilities in this role?
A: I do design work for all our department’s clients, and that includes a wide variety of design requests for print and digital, including HTML and animations. When needed, I work on pitch material as well as setting the look for new clients. I also make sure our artists (myself included) are up to speed on new software and initiate training when needed. I coordinate the requests coming in from account service to ensure all gets done in a timely fashion.
Q: Give us a little background on how you got into the industry.
A: I chose graphic design as my concentration in college and soon realized that I enjoyed designing and considered making it my future. I had a few internships in the field, which confirmed my interest.
Q: What brought you to Intermark?
A: I got my foot in as an intern, liked the Intermark vibe and applied for an artist position. It was nothing but a great experience!
Q: Have you held other positions at Intermark? How did you get in your current position?
A: After my internship, I moved over as a graphic artist and later moved into my current position.
Q: What’s your favorite part of what you do?
A: I must say I enjoy the challenge of my days being unpredictable. Even though the IDD department’s focus is the car industry, we receive requests for a wide variety of design material.
Q: What’s the most challenging part of your job?
A: The biggest challenge is managing the volume of work coming in.
Q: How have things changed technology-wise since you’ve been in the industry?
A: I don’t think anything in our industry stays the same for long. The clients’ needs constantly change and so do the avenues of communication. This means we need to stay on top of new software and training.
Q: Has your department added any new offerings/services in the past couple years?
A: Yes, we offer HTML e-blasts to bring more traffic to both the dealers’ stores and websites. We also offer a new way to create banner animations that generate HTML5, and this brings useful tracking and analytics.
Q: Are you seeing any new trends in the industry?
A: Social media is definitely a growing trend and the extent of digital design in general.
Q: Do you have a favorite project that you’ve worked on in the past?
A: Graphics for landing pages
Q: Favorite quote/saying?
A: “A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle.”
Q: Hobbies?
A: Outdoor adventures, traveling, running, art, etc.
Q: Family, pets?
A: For sure! My cat, “Lisa Kiddio,” friends and family play a very important role.
Q: What’s something that most people would be surprised to learn about you?
A: I can have a bad temper (most people would NEVER guess).
