I once counted up all the jobs I’ve held since starting work at fifteen. It was 64 different functions in business, communications, arts, tech, education, performance and beyond.

I like making things easy to understand and pretty to look at. My strength lies in abstraction and simplification of complex topics into clear, simple visual and written communication and instruction.

Design Portfolio

Logos

Logos are my bread and butter. Helping a business develop their logo and branding is a delight. Though the process is never the same twice because each client is unique, the result is always a logo and brand identity that works across web, print, and social media. Here are a few recent ones that I had fun with.

Stratechist Consulting operates from a strong foundation in social impact, CSR, and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. When they rebranded, I worked with the founder to develop a logo that evoked the SDGs while allowing it to stand firmly on its own.

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FEW Japan is a women’s business networking group in Tokyo that celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2021. As part of their events, they decided to update their logo. This was a process taken on by the entire board with a final vote by the membership. After many concepts and styles, the result was an updated version of the well-loved original logo. The new version allows for more color variations for their social media and event posters – in fact, I put together a set of seven for easy use in Canva.

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Mitake Eco Project is a community space in Ome, Japan that needed a bilingual logo in a rush for an event they were sponsoring. Thanks to the client’s quick turnaround on feedback and to the ease of using Canva as a design tool, I was able to produce the logo in less than a week. The final version uses my original drawing of their kura building made from a reference photo.

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Illustration

A number of my illustration clients are large corporations and so much of that work is not in my portfolio. This is an illustration project for a training video at Coca-Cola Japan some years ago. The remit was to create characters to introduce a new process to the sales teams. I sketched up storyboards and with the concepts approved, drew them in Illustrator with all the layers labelled for the animators’ ease of use. They reused the illustrations a few years later for a second project – so economical!

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Rainbow Tomatoes Garden is my family’s business in Pennsylvania and I am frequently called on to support their creative campaigns. The fish illustrations are my work; drawn from reference photos they are as anatomically correct as cartoon fish can be. They get clever designs for solving customer communication, too. Here’s a write up I did on the process of Anchovy Disambiguation.

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Not all of my illustrations are digital. These hand-penned botanical drawings appear in Nature’s Narrative by Barbara Morrison. It was a pleasure to observe each element and put them down on paper. I did most of this work sitting outside in the sun. What a change from the glare of the computer screen.

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Design & Layout

A designer’s life is never dull. Beyond original art, I am asked to do all types of design and layout work: social media campaigns, print materials, business presentations, postcards, e-books, event posters, newsletters, and so much more.

Design CV

Other Projects

I have worked with:

American Chamber of Commerce in Japan, Clarity with Christine, Coca-Cola Japan, Duquesne University, Enfour Media, enjoi Japan KK, EMCO Foodservice, FEW Japan, FCCJ, Gold Star Moving, Hangar eight, HasGeek, Japan-America Women’s Club, Jayne Nakata, Kneith, Lawyer on Air, Mira Simic-Yamashita, MSKK, Nature’s Narrative, Office of Teramoto, Omron, Ownpath, Perot Systems, Philip Morris Japan, Rainbow Tomatoes Garden, Sarah Furuya Coaching, SEN.io, Taste of Culture, Telerama Internet, TELL, Tokyo Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Tokyo Family Stays, UBS, United Nations University