MY ROLES_OLD

Sr. Art Manager

I spent a number of years as a Senior Art Manager on New Mobile Apps at DoubleDown Interactive. During this time I successfully led art and audio for games and game idea innovation. Some of my duties included:

Art Direction, Audio Direction, and Creative Direction
Managing Art Managers, teams of Artists, Animators, and Audio Engineers
Coaching and mentoring Art Managers as well as individual contributors
Managing art tasking, road maps, and schedules
Game design and creative concept innovation
Regular pitching of ideas to executive staff
Working with other disciplines and leadership to define cross functional goals and deliverables
Creative problem solving
Branding, brand extension, and advertising
Establish vision and pillars for art department
Establish pipelines, art team best practices, and production guidelines
Lead company engagement activities and partnered with experience team
Cross team collaboration with international teams and 3rd party studios
Demos, writing documentation, technical specs and education
Foster a positive and supportive team environment, team art culture, and morale
Build and managing team goals, both departmental and teamwide
Interview and hiring art / audio department personnel, and onboarding
Creative lead on top DoubleDown partnered brands for games like Ellen, Wheel of Fortune, and House of Cards
Executive Producer on new game ideas

I love to come up with game designs, theme ideas, and innovate new technology. Many of my game pitches (or variations of) have shipped, been put into production, and seen success in the marketplace. A patent was filed on one of them to secure the mechanics. From large multi game apps to small passion projects on the side, creating games runs in my blood. I’ve been a gamer my whole life and am thrilled to be working in this industry. A fun fact I like to boast about: 3 games that I directed showed up in the top 10 on the Apple App Store on the same day, one of them made App of the Day.

ORIGINAL CONCEPTS

Resume:

ART DIRECTION

Art direction can take different forms depending on the project. I will drive a highly collaborative and flexible approach to give other leads opportunity. Or, conversely, I can make it specific, deliberate, and locked down if I have a strong vision for the product. I adamantly adhere to a form follows function philosophy and will reinforce that through all phases of a project.

PROCESS

In directing my teams I will use many techniques to communicate notes. A quick draw-over sketch, an animatic, storyboard, or a quick collaborative whiteboard session are some of the ways to efficiently communicate the objectives.

TECHNICAL DIRECTION

Many times a bridge is needed between art and technology. Sometimes that requires a visual technical spec, a full breakdown of best practices, or a video walkthrough to fully disseminate the information to a variety of teams.

TEAM BUILDING

I take team building seriously, gluing a team together is essential to morale as well as relationship building. In the example below - I organized this fun blacksmithing activity with an online miniature building component for our remote employees. Everyone loved it...

COMPANY ENGAGEMENT

I have partnered with our Experience Team to drive engagement with our products. The example below shows stickers, company event decor, and activity props we built to drive company engagement around our Space themed app.