Creative Portfolio
Golden Note Entertainment
5 Tips For Planning In A Crisis
An early response blog article for clients and potential clients whose events and event planning were affected by COVID-19. The basis of the article stemmed from professional community conversations and the ideas presented here became foundational in the continued response to and from vendors as the crisis evolved.
Click here to read this article and see more of the writing and design I’ve done for Golden Note Entertainment, including the page layouts and service copy for the company.
Photo Booth Design Catalog
Occupying space between marketing and production, the photo booth design catalog was designed to pitch the service to clients as well as facilitate the choices in design that booked clients would ultimately make.
Meant for digital delivery, I produced this in Adobe InDesign with some useful links and room for expanding digital content. This catalog also aligns with a web form I created that clients would fill out, delivering their choices to the company’s production team.
Virtual Bridal Showcase Presentation
A five minute video for marketing Golden Note Entertainment to clients as part of a larger virtual vendor showcase. Developed on a short timeline, this video represents a conglomeration of my own skills (some admittedly stronger than others) in a major independent project—copywriting, scripting, interviews, staging, filming, editing.
Simple Celebrations
A 4-page brochure designed on a short turnaround time to establish a timely marketing push for cost-effective wedding ceremonies during and beyond the COVID-19 crisis.
While this was delivered in a digital format, the design was focused on a potential for future printing and maintaining brand style with other printed materials.
DMS Mini Mix #368
Being an MC & DJ in addition to being the company’s Creative Director means also developing performance content to share with new audiences and potential clients online. This mix is not just a showcase of talent, but a recognition of it as it is hosted by a fairly acclaimed record pool, Direct Music Service.
Like writing, I see DJing as a creative medium that allows for some storytelling and voice to be displayed through the choices and energy given throughout the mix. This also accounts for some minor audio production skill in Adobe Audition on my part.
Lamplighter Magazine
Issue #04, Lamplighter Magazine
This issue was the launch of a more focused effort in producing a print magazine, specifically in creating a higher quality product. Issue #04 encompassed a larger format change, from 8.5”x11” to 5.5”x8.5,” giving us access to higher quality material for the cost and a more manageable size for distribution.
This is also the first issue in which featured art from a contributor on the cover rather than a feature photo from our team, representing the start of our greater collaboration with the community at large.
I was also particularly excited about this issue because it allowed for us to change the binding. We had a spine.
Work of mine in this issue appears as a writer, editor, and in the layout of the magazine overall.
Issue #05, Lamplighter Magazine
This issue represents, for me, a culmination of experience and mission. By the release of this issue, our team had completed two crowdfunding campaigns, was releasing semi-regular online content, was focused on creating a strong print magazine and was poised to turn fully into a non-profit entity.
Within this issue we were able to also engage in a larger amount of submissions from our community, including more photography and poetry, making it our largest issue at 112 pages.
I will always be proud of the work I was able to accomplish with this team of writers, editors, photographers and other contributors. I’m also proud of the work I had accomplished in laying out this design. Sadly, this was also our final issue.
The Rumpus
My Life With Annie Lennox
by Abby Higgs
While working as Music Editor for The Rumpus, one of the music reviewers, Abby Higgs, pitched an essay series in similar vein to the Albums of Our Lives column which focused on a person’s lived experience alongside an album (or song) that held meaning to them.
I worked closely with Abby for two years, across six essays, on this series and that relationship did a lot to shape my perspective, style, and focus as an editor. I still adore this series.
Sweet Dreams is the first of the series: Read online, View PDF
Albums of Our Lives: Frightened Rabbit’s The Midnight Organ Fight
by Whitney Van Laningham
Part of a collection of essays working under this column, I believe this stands out as a strong representation of the column overall and my eye for it as an editor. Van Laningham presents an engaging journey of self-discovery and where the tracks of the album define a playlist along this journey, we get to live inside the author’s ears as much as the space between.
This essay represents a defining aspect in my life as an editor, too, in that I know I was wholly unfamiliar with the band and the album. I can distinctly say my role as music editor here was not (and truthfully never was) based on my personal preference or knowledge.
Songs of Our Lives: Paul Simon’s Me And Julio Down By The Schoolyard
by Elizabeth O’Brien
One of the brilliant aspects of the Songs of Our Lives and Albums of Our Lives series is its mixed-media format, presenting music and music videos alongside the author’s experiential essay. O’Brien’s essay caught my attention in submissions because her writing is wonderfully musical on its own, but her essay runs the gamut from sweet to haunting to lonely. The juxtaposition of Simon’s upbeat Me And Julio… made this essay stand not as one focused on embodying the song, but one that truly integrates the song into a more dynamic life-scape.
Sound Takes: Leonard Cohen’s You Want It Darker
by Amish Trivedi
The Sound Takes column composed a space where writers would both pitch album reviews and where I would solicit writers to review albums sent to me by record label promoters. Trivedi’s review of You Want It Darker is a timely exploration into the album around the time of Cohen’s passing. Dark, honest, and thoughtful, the essay exemplifies the best of what a literary album review can accomplish by reaching beyond a superficial sonic investigation and into the philosophical, the poetic, the phenomenal.