resume

March 2001 - Present

On my own! In March 2001, after about eight years working in the exhibit industry, I finally decided it was now or never. So, here I am. I'm a full time Freelance designer with experience in all areas of design, but specializing in Exhibit design. After over 20 years in the Exhibit industry I have had the opportunity to design for exhibit companies such as Nimlok, Skyline, Agam and Nomadic as well as custom builders.

May 2000 - March 2001

Paul Person Graphics - Chicago, IL

PPG is a large format printing company specializing in producing graphics for the Trade Show Industry. This was a very valuable experience for me rounding out my knowledge of the Trade Show Industry. After all this time designing graphics, I finally got a full understanding of what happened between the time the digital files left my computer and the final product arrived on the clients' doorstep. My responsibilities included designing graphics, preflighting client supplied files, helping make sure the flow of work was smooth, filling in where ever I could, contact with the client and about 100 other things that go into making a job happen but are really too boring to get into. If you're ever in a bind, give these guys a call, they really know how to make things happen.

September 1999 - May 2000

Skyline Displays & Marketing - Madison, WI

This is when I got the brilliant idea that I wanted to try my hand at selling exhibits. I had been designing them for about six years, knew most everything about them and figured sales was where the money was at, right? So, I spent this time working as a remote rep, working from home and still doing most of my own design work. I did fine at it, but realized that design is what I really loved to do.

January 1998 - September 1999

Xibits of Madison - McFarland, WI

What a great experience. This is when I got a lot of experience dealing with people from a distance. Xibits is a Nimlok dealer with five locations around the country. I serviced them all from my location in Madison. Here I got to do a lot of fun stuff. I did everything; graphic design, CAD drawings, color renderings and anything else that needed to be done that no one else knew how to do. Great town, great people to work with.

January 1994 - January 1998

Skyline Displays Chicago - WoodDale, IL This is when I knew I found something I could enjoy for a long time. I was still very young, one year out of college, when I got this job. I worked with some great people who showed me the ropes and taught me the business. This is also where I started to learn people skills. The owner of the company has mastered these skills and to this day I consider him the greatest person I ever worked for as well as one of the nicest guys I've ever known. My responsibilities here included; graphic design, CAD drawings, color renderings, and client meetings. This is also where I started to develop my psychic abilities which comes in handy when a client or rep is having a hard time explaining what they want. (Just kidding)

January 1993 - January 1994

Dowling & Pope Advertising - Chicago, IL

Not much to say here except this was my foot in the door into the real world. D & P is a recruitment advertising agency. In a nut shell, I designed black and white ads for the newspaper. I ended up with quite a bit of responsibility here. After about six months, my fellow designers who were there before me, got bored & moved on, leaving me in charge. It wasn't very challenging artisticly, but like I said, this is how I started to learn about real responsibility and working in the real world.