Design and Creative Skills
My approach to design and creativity is anchored in blending artistic vision with strategic thinking. I leverage a wide range of technical skills and creative tools to craft compelling visual stories that resonate with audiences and align with brand objectives.
My Approach
I've been in design related fields for a long time, and throughout that period my approach for most of the clients and organizations I've worked with is finding the happy balance of innovative creative vision with a results-oriented and strategic mindset. For every "wouldn't this be so cool!" idea, I ground it in the context of how it serves the business goals, and how I can craft it to best do so. Every project, campaign, and client is different, but here are some common steps to my approach.
- Discovery: what else is out there? What are competitors doing? Researching tangential ideas that might relate to the current project.
- Inspiration: Sometimes I just need to take a walk and think, other times make a mess on a digital canvass. Somehow a concept takes shape.
- Craft: Pen to paper, or get that mouse working hard. Crafting the actual design is where the magic (and sometimes frustration happens).
- Feedback & Iteration: Run it by the stakeholder. Earlier is better. Refine based on feedback, tweak, nudge, make it perfectly imperfect.
- Release: At some point it has to launch! Remember to breathe...
- Track: don't just hope for the best. Let go of ego, see how it performs, collect whatever data possible, and apply learnings to the next time.
Professional Outcomes
Applying this approach (and improvising however necessary) has done well for me, as has an ever deepening respect and interest in the creative process as expressed through design and the needs of marketing, brand representation, or even litigation (I designed demonstrative graphics for courtroom attorneys for years).
There are two positive pieces of feedback on my creative ability that have stuck with me as one I am proud of. A former Chief Marketing Officer, when mentioning me to the greater marketing team, offered me up as a "powerful visual storyteller." I loved that, as I love stories of all kinds, from books, comics, and paintings to movies, shows, and animation. I strive to tap into the deep appreciation all people have for a good story, whether I do that through an engaging long video, or through a single interesting image.
The other one was from a lawyer I worked with early in my career, who said "Troy just gets it." As in, he almost never had to tell me twice, and he could give a simple instruction of what he was looking for, and I had the ability to interpret that and translate it into powerful visuals that communicated persuasively. It's something I continue to strive for through my freelance work with different brands, and now my design team management with Moz.