I'm Melissa, a Sydney based Graphic Designer passionate about all things Design including Brand Identities, Typesetting, and Visual Storytelling. My personal approach to design is that I tell the visual stories that demonstrate the uniqueness of brands. My previous experience includes working for an in-house creative studio where I was a Project Manager for creative projects involving the in-house Graphic Designer, Copywriter, Web Designer, Web Developer, Art Director as well as collaborations with an external Video Editor and Web Developer. With this experience I bring a hands on experience of the entire process involved in creative projects from concept brainstorming right through to final artwork and project delivery.
Throughout my time as a Project Manager and a Marketing Executive I have also generated and contributed to projects with some creative designs of my own. These designs have ranged from content creation to presentation designs through to video editing, web design and technical instruction booklets for how to use a product i.e. how to use a newly available Online Education Portal with a login/sign up personalised account feature tracking individual education progress and certifications.
Most recently I have expanded upon my Graphic Design capabilities with a broad range of technical skills that span to also include a wide selection of the programs available in the Adobe suite. For this I have pursued official education for training purposes in order to provide my design services directly.
As an avid creative who is adept across a broad range of the Adobe suite programs my creativity is backed by a business sensitivity that understands brands from the perspectives of business, creative and audience. This business sensitivity is grounded in both my marketing experience and education which includes a Bachelor of Commerce, Major in Marketing.
My creativity extends across the full breadth of project delivery from conceptualising of initiatives and storyboards, through to the execution and delivery across a broad range of print and online/digital deliveries which include typography, typesetting, layout design, web design, UI/UX, photo retouching, video editing, motion graphics and some HTML and CSS. And my technical skills are backed by my experience and education that includes a Diploma of Graphic Design.
The latest project I am particularly proud of is the undertaking and delivery of my portfolio website www.MyDesignSolution.com. This project involved many individual projects within it to bring it to completion. One of the main conceptual challenges for this project was to provide a solution that would allow it the scope to be an evolving platform for future designs as well.
To highlight some of the individual projects that needed to be completed for this to go live the following are notable:
1. Web design: I designed my portfolio website in Adobe InDesign.
2. Web development: I coded my website in HTML and CSS in Adobe Dreamweaver. I created the name "My Design Solution". And I purchased the hosting and utilised Control Panel to file and make the site live.
3. 'Hero' motion graphic video: The landing page 'hero' video is a motion graphic video I conceptualised from story board through to execution inside of both After Effects and Premier Pro showcasing a selection of my graphic designs.
4. Print Portfolio design and motion graphic graphic video: I designed my print portfolio in InDesign and made it into a digital feature by creating a page turning animation of it inside of After Effects to showcase it as a video on the website. The vision for doing so was to create an opportunity for the portfolio to be viewed in the most convenient way for the viewer.
5. Portfolio cover artwork (digital painting): I digitally painted my portfolio cover artwork in Photoshop and utilised Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign to complete the cover layout design.
6. Cover artwork animation: I created a theme from the portfolio cover design by featuring it on the website. In order to create this cohesive theme I created an animation from the painted artwork to include in the landing page 'hero' video. To create the animation I designed an alternative layout in InDesign. I then utilised the original Photoshop artwork file with After Effects to deliver a story board animation that I conceptualised and executed.