Stacy Koviak-Davison | About the Artist

About

Artist Statement

I am currently open to accepting selective freelance design work. This portfolio site was designed to showcase a collective body of my work from both PSOMA design, my freelance company, and Blue Fire Media, where I have been creative director and lead graphic designer for the past eleven years. If you are a company interested in hiring a part-time or full-time graphic designer or creative director I would be open to further discussion to see if it would be a good fit creatively. For any art or design inquiries, you can contact me here.

Thank you for looking at my work.

Artist Profile

Highly creative, motivated, and multi-talented graphic designer/artist seeking a creative position. Extensive experience in web design, branding and identity, print design, marketing, and ad specialty/promotional products. Exceptional multi-tasking skills; can manage several projects simultaneously within a deadline driven environment. Extremely detail oriented and organized; self-driven on individual projects and a dynamic team player in creative groups. Very strong interpersonal and communication skills. Leadership and management experience as a creative director of a design team/department. Capable of grasping new programs and skills quickly and running with them.

Skills

Over twenty-three years of experience in creating impactful, effective, and efficient designs of all styles in a multitude of mediums for both online and print applications, along with wearable applications in the screen printing/embroidery industry. Experience working nationwide with both small and large businesses, professional athletes and sports teams, bands, restaurants, organizations, school systems, and financial institutions on a vast range of design solutions. My focus is always to achieve innovative design solutions tailored to each client's individual needs.

Design and development of website artwork from initial concepts followed by any custom subpage layouts needed. Work with programmers to achieve custom design solutions for data challenges. Asset preparation/cutting of graphics for programmers to build sites. Responsible for the completion of the website with the loading of content and graphics, creating sub banners, callouts, any other design elements and loading galleries, etc. Also involved with detailed quality review and creating bug lists for programmers to adjust before launch. Experienced in designing artwork for ADA compliant websites.
Web/interactive/digital design experience for all types of clients and industries including business (both B2B and B2C), manufacturing, educational, restaurants, e-commerce sites, sports/athletics, medical/health, the arts, entertainment, musicians, retail, and more; banner ads, web-based graphics, website updates, e-books, e-newsletters, social media ads, and profile assets.
Proficient with print design and branding/marketing production projects including, logo creation/development, style guides, business cards, letterhead, brochures, booklets, marketing flyers, folder design, coupons, postcards, greeting cards, invitations, scrapbook paper design, banners, posters, album artwork, press-kits, tradeshow displays, product/packaging design, vehicle wraps, signage design, and more.
Experienced with vector design and illustration for logo development, print design, character creation/development, screen print (t-shirt) design, and ASI marketing items.
Experience in digitizing for embroidery and running industrial embroidery machines for order fulfillment; creating vector designs for screen printing; designing for vinyl signs and vehicle lettering; along with weeding, vinyl prep, and application.
Some experience working with video compilation and editing.
Traditional mediums include: pencil/graphite, charcoal, colored pencil, pastels, pen and ink, acrylic, watercolor, oil painting, mural painting, photography, and photo-retouching/editing.

Technical Proficiency

Adobe Creative Suite - Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat Pro, Lightroom, Premiere Pro, InDesign, Fireworks, Dreamweaver, Flash. Pulse Signature (Tajima), Composer Software, Corel Draw, QuarkXpress, Microsoft Office Suite, Basic HTML and CSS authoring. I've worked on both PC and Mac platforms. Content Management System (CMS) experience includes: Word Press, Drupal, Wix, and SquareSpace. Additional industry related machinery experience includes: industrial Tajima multi-head embroidery machines, large format Gerber vinyl cutter, and heat press systems.

Education

THE ART INSTITUTE OF PITTSBURGH | Pittsburgh, PA

Bachelor of Arts in Graphic Design, Minor in Illustration 1997-1998

THE UNIVERSITY OF FINDLAY | Findlay, OH

Bachelor of Arts in Art / Visual Communications, Minor in Equine Studies 1994-1998

Professional Experience

BLUE FIRE MEDIA | Portage, MI

2009-2021

Creative Director, Senior Web and Graphic Design

Since working for Blue Fire Media I have increased their local recognition with my eye-catching design work and we are now known as one of the leading web development companies in the area. I also brought to the table the ability for the company to offer more than just web design with my prior years of experience in print design, logo development/branding, etc. As a direct result, the increase of interest drastically improved company sales and we have not only doubled, but tripled our staff and departments during my time here in order to accommodate the demand and growth of the company. As creative director my role includes overseeing all the inner workings of the graphic design department and managing a team of designers, while also handling my own project workload. Some of my responsibilities in this role include:

Assessing the incoming workload and assigning project tickets to team members.
Reviewing concept proofs, critiquing, and giving constructive feedback/lists of changes to design staff when needed.
Maintaining quality and creative standards within our department.
Mentoring and teaching skills and processes.
Developing a system within our team that allows for all designers to jump in on any project and be able to take over and complete the next phase of any given project.
Managing multiple project deadlines and working with my team to coordinate the most productive and efficient workflow.
Preparing and sending design concept proofs to project managers.
Scheduling and assigning photo and video shoots for my team.
Working closely with project managers to communicate on stages of project development and requesting items we need so they can gather them from clients to keep projects moving smoothly and efficiently.
Attending client meetings to take direct notes from them / asking design-specific questions.
Attending meetings to present design concepts or proofs and have open discussions with clients and project managers regarding their artwork, answer questions, getting feedback on designs, etc.

As lead senior graphic designer, I carry a full design workload on top of managing the design department, in which I:

Consistently meet or exceed timelines for concept proofs.
Consistently create innovative and impactful designs while keeping with current industry trends.
Consistently assess each client's competition and create designs that elevate and push them to the front of the pack in their industry.
Work on multiple projects with different timelines and deadlines.
Take part in detail-oriented quality reviews of websites to test them page by page in all of their responsive states (from desktop to mobile) for anything that may need to be adjusted or changed before the website is shown to client or before it is pushed live depending on its stage of development.
Work simultaneously on a range of projects from website design concepts, to logos, to print design, website updates, website reviews, tradeshow display components, editing photos, and whatever else comes my way. Every day is different. Every project is different, and that's what I love about being a graphic designer.

PSOMA design | Kalamazoo, MI

2000-Present

Freelance Graphic Design, Owner

Creative director and owner responsible for all areas of business from client communications quote/bid, to managing and coordination of all design projects from concept through completion. Collaborated with clients one-on-one to conceive concepts based on their visions and individual needs. Successfully multi-tasked multiple projects at a time and implemented innovative design solutions for each client while meeting deadlines and budget requirements. Responsible for hiring and managing contract artists and programmers for specific projects. Established trusting relationships with vendors and key clients resulting in many return customers. My work with PSOMA design has included the following: logo development, album artwork, print design, press kit design, poster design, web development, web ads and e-flyers, business cards, brochures, corporate identity/branding packages, screen print design, vinyl design for clothing and signage, outdoor advertising, embroidery digitizing, illustration and fine art, custom mural painting, and photography/photo retouching.

INK & THREAD PROMOTIONS | Richmond, VA

2006-2009

Graphic Design, Screen Print Design, Embroidery Digitizing

Hired as a designated contract artist for this company (worked remotely) to design creative vector screen print designs for clients of all types (businesses, schools, colleges, sports teams, restaurants, etc.). I was also responsible for turning client-submitted rough artwork or sketches into workable vector art for spot color printing. Very experienced in recreating ALL miscellaneous formats of submitted art into the proper design formats for screen printing. Other duties included setting up vector art for a multitude ASI ad specialty marketing items. On the embroidery side, I digitized logos for Ink & Thread and provided them with the stitch files to run their embroidery jobs from their shop in Virginia.

BRAVO MULTIMEDIA | Richmond, VA

2004-2005

Creative Director, Web Design, Graphic Design

I was sought out for this job and hired to bring my creativity and knowledge of print advertisements and high-resolution logo and corporate identity design to this company (they were previously exclusively web-based). Worked as the creative director and was responsible for renovating several existing clients' online promotional ad campaigns to boost sales and achieve a more sophisticated web presence. Designed e-newsletters and web promotions. Handled website development for new clients, and several site redesigns for existing clients including flash integrations both small and large scale. My position also required managing/updating several sites that we hosted, allowing me to work with CMS and e-commerce sites adding content and products, etc. Reworked the company logo and online presence, and designed the branding for several in-house web services we offered to our clients. Expanded their previous web-based only design capabilities to full service logo design, corporate identity/branding, and print design which increased the company profits.

JRL CREATIVE MARKETING | Richmond, VA

2001-2004

Graphic Design, Screen Print Design, Embroidery Digitizing

Worked in the graphic design department creating and setting up art for screen printing, including printing films. Responsible for logo design and vector setup for ASI and marketing items of all sorts. Ran the embroidery department here and managed other embroidery employees. Was responsible for all the embroidery set-up, custom digitizing, and order fulfillment. Also did web development for the design team and helped expand our department into offering more range in design services like logo design and web development to our clients during my time with this company.

LOOK SHARP! MARKETING / SPORTING IMAGE | Paw Paw, MI

1999-2001

Graphic Design, Embroidery Digitizing, Screen Print Design

Ran the embroidery department and was responsible for all embroidery set-up, digitizing, and order fulfillment. Worked as a graphic designer creating screen print designs for both spot color and 4-color process jobs. Contributed to the sign department by designing signs, weeding, applying vinyl to banners, signage, and vehicles. Also worked with high-density foam to carve and paint large business signs. Worked on some projects with heat-press application and pushed a squeegee a time or two on the screen print press when needed. Excelled as a dedicated team player and worked in all departments while balancing my time management and meeting all project deadlines.