Herby Pickles Creative

I lead the graphic design, formatting, and creative needs for a $40M USAID contract, using my strong design skills to deftly balance brand integrity with a creative approach to government regulations. My client was so thrilled with our project’s visual materials she told my leadership team that we had “the best-looking materials at the agency.” 

As the only graphic designer, I led my communications colleagues through the process of creating impactful visual designs for our various product lines and marketing campaigns, including brainstorming, color theory, alignment with parent branding and brand voice, creating mockups, brand guidelines, quality control, and delivering high-quality design assets.

Specific materials created included curricula (workbooks, textbooks, facilitator guides, answer keys, and presentations), conference and event branding (swag, booth art, leave-behind materials), fact sheets, brochures, posters, pitch decks, business cards, custom icons, web graphics and social media graphics.​

In my first foray into freelancing, I explored my passion for graphic design and managed event marketing, media relations, and graphic design for small businesses. This experience allowed me to develop a keen eye for detail and deepen my skill set outside of my 9-5 job. 

In my first few years out of college, I gained a wealth of experience across the comms spectrum, working on social media management and media relations for a large, multi-national nonprofit, and working on graphic design, event management, presentation editing, web design, podcast production, video editing, and authoring media alerts, press releases, and social posts for a Washington DC-based NGO. These experiences allowed me to learn a little bit about a lot and identify what I really wanted to do within my field. 

My public relations degree fostered strong communication abilities, both written and verbal, which are crucial for crafting effective messages in any medium. I gained experience in crisis management, marketing and public relations strategies, advertising best practices, along with project management and leadership skills.

My minor in marketing also provided exposure to brand management, web design, and a foundational knowledge of design principles, color theory, layout, typography, basic art skills and visual communication.