Professional Experience

18 years of industrial design experience, from creative through manufacturing.

Industrial Designer

The Central Group

February 2022 to Present

Ideating and executing permanent display solutions for brands looking to perform at retail. Responsible for design and technical drawings of metal, plastic, and wood displays. Define objectives with salespeople, advise creative designers on material opportunities/ challenges, collaborate with fellow designers and engineers, provide engineering drawings for estimators, and problem-solve and set standards for suppliers in the USA, Canada, Mexico, and China.

Key Accomplishments:

• Brought a display with over 200 parts through production by providing instruction and support to vendors and copacking team.
• Worked with Chinese manufacturers to produce and fulfill displays directly to the distribution centers of Kraft-Heinz Canada and Nestle Canada.
• Designed and developed a new display system that included injection molded parts. The unique design work will result in a patent for The Central Group.

Founder

Nordeau

October 2020 to January 2022

Designing brand identities for small to medium-sized businesses. Working with other creative organizations, Sold Right Away and Blackbox, on a contract basis.

Key Accomplishments

• Enjoyed a 5-star rating on Google My Business while developing logos, brand identities, and WordPress websites with custom themes using Divi.
• Reduced hosting costs by 64% by developing a LAMP web server leveraging Google Cloud Platform: Compute Engine.
• Grew brandmarketingblog.com to 30,000 monthly unique visitors through SEO writing.
• Prepared a German bedding brand to crest $1,000,000 (USD) in revenue by defining their brand values, story, and key differentiators.
• Found a secure and easy solution for pharmacists to dispose of extra pills by designing a lid to a standard bin with a one-way mechanical slot.
• Enabled a local injection molding manufacturer to compete against a patented product by finding an alternative solution to allow a recycle bin to stack and nest with a rotating handle. The bins are now sold at Walmarts nationwide.
• Enabled the principal of Sold Right Away to take time off by filling in as creative director for three months. Made improvements to their creative processes and file management and assembled a Mac file server with existing hardware.

Studio Manager | Graphic Designer / Industrial Designer

Matrix Marketing

Oct. 2010 to Oct. 2020

Studio Manager (Apr. 2013 to Oct. 2020)
Graphic Designer / Industrial Designer (Oct. 2010 to Apr. 2013)

Managed and developed two graphic designers augmented by three freelance designers to My team produced award-winning retail displays, fixtures, and trade show booths for clients in the US and Canada. Developed design from concept sketches to production files.

Key Accomplishments:

• Hired two great contributors, each with over four years of tenure, by screening and interviewing candidates with the Director of Operations.
• Lead two graphic designers and one freelance designer to beat timeline targets on three rounds of updates to the Walmart entertainment section, each requiring 50+ print designs.
• Increased designer efficiency while reducing hardware and IT costs by switching the creative department’s computers from Mac to Windows using change management principles.
• Made sure legacy design files were accessible and backed up off-site by designing, implementing, and managing a file archiving procedure.
• Encouraged cooperation between departments by clarifying design briefs with salespeople and project managers and ensuring the clients provided all required specs and assets.
• Self-initiated a rebrand of Matrix to be perceived as more innovative, intelligent, and friendly. Defined objectives, led brainstorming sessions, and convinced key decision-makers. Managed a team of two graphic designers, a web designer, and a web developer to redesign the website, all marketing collateral, and internal documents within a four-month schedule.
• Directed the team that designed all print material for Little Ceasar’s locations across Canada.
• Improved customer communications and retailer relationships for Italpasta by modernizing Italpasta.com. Developed a highly visual website that loaded in less than 1.2 seconds by working with an outside web developer.
• Increased the perception of quality of Italpasta by art directing the packaging and branding of the Italpasta Selezione De-Bronzo premium pasta line.
• Won the ITWAL Marketplace, Supplier Performance Award for 2018, recognizing the Italpasta tradeshow booth design.
• Won a competitive RFP process run by Royal Canin for their business to design and construct the product shelving and signage in all the veterinary clinics across Canada that carried their food.
• Increased the quality and speed of internal communications by Rolling Microsoft Teams over two weeks to prepare for COVID-19 work-from-home policy. Used change management principles
• Grew revenue by signing a large client, Ubisoft, by pitching novel concepts that fit their priorities, franchises, and brand.
• Furthered relationship with Ubisoft by designing standees referred to by the client as “just perfect.”
• Won bid for Batman Arkham City Canadian retail rollout by designing innovative concepts.
• Increased efficiency of the design department by introducing sketching in Photoshop and Clip Studio Paint as a concept visualization tool.
• Decreased time to market and increased production quality by introducing Solidworks.
• Cut in half the production cost of a corrugate display by reducing the number of corrugate sheets per display and using 82% of what remained.

Industrial Designer

FX Displays

Sept 2008 to Oct. 2010

Designed retail displays and fixtures using 3D CAD (Solidworks). Set creative direction for corrugate displays. Provided sales department with 3D renderings. Drafted technical drawings that the production department used to quote and manufacture.

Key Accomplishments

• Got buy-in from executives at Nestle and Cadbury presenting 3D renderings from Solidworks.
• Worked directly with the factory, solving production problems while maintaining the design intent. Provided technical drawings that enabled quoting, model making, and production.
• Greenlit 5 out of 5 product concepts pitched to Kraft for Jell-O for market testing.
• Won a competitive RFP for Cadbury’s primary convenience store display, playing both a design and sales role.
• Won a competitive RFP for 90% of Cadbury’s Canadian corrugate floor display business.

Jr. Industrial Designer, Intern

Red Leaf Retail, Inc.

May 2006 to September 2006

Responsible for the concept visualization and graphic design of retail displays for the electronics manufacturers. Apprenticed under the founder of Red Leaf. Accountable for the Sony “HD World” display. Sony was the primary client I worked with, but I also serviced Meijer, Bell, and many more.

Key Accomplishments

• Part of a team that successfully sold and executed HD World, selling for $10,000+ each, and $300,000+ overall.
• Learned professional graphic design through apprenticeship.

Skills

Visualizing and 3D skills to communicate ideas and execute solutions.

Expert Level Skills

Skills in which I have a level of expertise and could train others.

• Solidworks
• Adobe Photoshop CC
• Adobe Illustrator CC
• Microsoft Powerpoint
• WordPress
• Sketching, Digital
• Sketching, Tradition Media
• Graphic Design
• Logo Design
• Brand Identity Design
• Design for Print
• Leading Brainstorming Sessions

Professional Skills

Skills in which I can accomplish tasks with a high level of quality.

• Adobe Indesign CC
• Adobe Acrobat Pro
• Adobe Premiere Pro
• Adobe Lightroom
• Microsoft Outlook
• Microsoft Word
• Microsoft Excel
• Design for Web & Apps
• Technical Drawing
• Ahrefs SEO Tools
• SEO Research
• Copywriting
• Writing Social Media Posts

Working Level Skills

Skills where I can accomplish tasks with some personal research.

• Adobe Audition
• Adobe Media Encoder
• 3D Studio Max
• Cloudflare
• HTML

Education

University Degree

Bachelor of Industrial Design, with distinction

Carleton University, 2007

Training

• Extreme Ownership Academy: Extreme Ownership Framework, 2023
• LinkedIn Learning: Design for Molding with SOLIDWORKS, 2023
• AICC: Corrugated Basics, 2022
• AICC: Understanding Combined Board Combinations, 2022
• AICC: Digital Transformation for Corrugated Printing, 2022
• The Packaging School: Package Printing, 2022

Other Relevant Experience

Writer and Editor

Brand Marketing Blog

Dec. 2016 to Present

Founded brandmarketingblog.com, a resource for executives, founders, marketing professionals, and designers, read by over 14,000 people every month. Wrote articles that rank number one on over 100 Google search terms. Interview luminaries of brand marketing. Interviewed Jay Baer (NY Times bestselling marketing author), Robert Deluce (CEO, Porter Airlines), Alexander Mimran (CEO, Minbox), and others. Wrote an article that became required reading at a university.

Digital Marketer

Coach’s Advantage: Soccer Practice Drills

Sept 2016 to Present

Redesigned and rebranded soccerpracticebooks.com for better conversion rates (email signup and book sales). Implemented WordPress + WooCommerce. Started and designed weekly email newsletter via MailChimp.

• Three straight quarters of increased sales conversion rates, both sales, and email signups.
• Increased revenue by 36% in 8 months.

Author and Illustrator

The Neverborn Saga, Book 1: Tessellation

May 2014 to Present

Wrote a sci-fi adventure book about a young woman who finds herself outside of her utopian society while trying to save her mother and discovers her world isn’t what it seemed. Wrote 76,000, drew 5 illustrations. Designed branding, cover, and website. Currently being edited for launch.

Volunteer Experience

Vice Chair

Burlington Chamber of Commerce

August 2021 to Present

Vice-Chair of the Young Professionals Network (YPN) committee. The YPN helps professionals under the age of 40 connect with the chamber community and continue to have opportunities in the Burlington business market. The Vice-Chair supports the Chair of the committee and the staff liaison to run bi-monthly meetings, plan events, and support advocacy/volunteer initiatives defined by YPN members.

• Collected feedback and ammended the Terms of Reference to better reflect the goals of members and the role of the YPN.

Committee Member

Oakville Hospital Foundation

May 2021 to Present

Member of the Community Engagement Committee (CEC) for the Oakville Hospital Foundation. The CEC meets quarterly to connect the foundation to the local community through fundraising, events, and outreach. Relating to the community is critical to furthering the foundation’s mission of connecting generosity to world-class community healthcare at Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital.

• Supported the Canadian Carribean Association of Halton, a key foundation partner, execute their Emancipation Day 2021 event.
• Started the Businesses Giving Together fundraising inniative in 2021.