How did I get here?

I graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in Fine Arts in 2002, or as an intern once told me, the "Ancient Times". My thesis work focused on the Computer as an Artistic Medium. The first step in my Designer career was at Milestone Communications, where I worked as a Graphic Designer creating brand designs, landing pages and collateral material for special events and BTL advertising campaigns.

After three and a half years I decided to venture into the advertising world, where I spent 10 years creating experiences for a wide range of brands. From Walgreens to Panasonic, Heineken, Jack Daniel's, Toyota, Lexus, Scion, Wendy's, Trident Gum and many more. I started out as a Sr. Visual Designer at a Boutique Agency called Eko Advertising, which then became a part of Euro RSCG (now Havas Group) where I worked my way up to Art Director. By 2008 I embarked on a freelance creative journey which took me to many different marketing and advertising agencies, large and small, local and global. In 2011 I decided to sharpen up my web design skills and study abroad at ELISAVA School of Design in Barcelona. I learned how to manage a digital project from start to finish, and got to dabble in Javascript, Php and ActionScript ( RIP ). I also travelled a lot through Europe, which gave me the chance to see advertising and graphic design from different countries and perspectives.


Me at 12 Tonar in Iceland, trying to look intellectual and stuff.

Upon returning I dove back into the advertising world as a Digital Art Director for Badillo Saatchi and Saatchi, where I had the opportunity to be part of some of the most personally rewarding projects of my career. I worked my way up to managing digital design with a small group of junior designers. In 2015 I accepted a Senior Digital Art Director position at J Walter Thompson (now Wunderman Thompson). For 2 years I worked on digital design for Walgreens, Jack Daniel's, Heineken and the Puerto Rico Tourism Company amongst many others. I learned a lot about all the hard team work that is put into creating award winning projects.

By 2017 I decided to venture into the product side of design to witness how a brand works from the inside. I landed at BOLD, where I had the opportunity to reshape a brand, and be exposed to an amazing team of UX Designers and Developers that showed me the ropes, from of how a product is built and tested to non-stop optimized in order to create the best user journey possible.

Around the same time I took on a few freelance projects, putting together and managing a team of 2 developers and 1 designer to work on landing pages and web banner campaings for Toyota.

Now:

In 2019 I moved into my current Senior Designer role at Ad Practitioners, where I've had the opportunity of being the first designer assigned to the content team. I've helped build up design expectations, creating a brand from scratch, a crazy amount of infographics and one or two animations for Money.com, ConsumersAdvocate.org and The FourOneOne. I've also had the chance to help recruit new team members.

Right now I'm working at home with my wife, both of us balancing our careers with our 4 year old daughter, 2 dogs and a cat. I've been using SkillShare to refresh my Javascript knowledge, learn a bit about Google Analytics, try to figure out how to keep my house plants alive and sharpen up on some guitar solo techniques to further nurture my dream of one day shredding like Mike McCready (not even close at the moment). I also started listening to the How did this get made podcast to keep my mind off the current state of the world and finally discovered LCD Sound System and wonder why I never payed attention to them before, goes without saying that it's never too late to discover something new. Or old.