I worked for Midwest Meetings® magazine (a trade publication mailed to meeting and event planners in the Midwest) for 25 years. I started in the circulation department managing the mailing list. I was also tasked with calling hotels, resorts, convention & conference center and CVBs to confirm who handled their marketing and advertising. Soon after, I was offered a sales position. I had fun with that but an opportunity to design the Advertiser’s Index presented itself and I took it. It didn’t take long and I was designing the whole magazine (using Adobe InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator and Distiller.) The main magazine was printed 4 times a year and the digest sized publication was an annual. From receiving the ads, preflighting them for errors, laying out where all the ads, articles and miscellaneous things go, then fit them all into a tidy page count, I managed all of them from start to finish but did have design input from the publisher.
I also created all media kits, trade show banners & handouts, direct mail (some personalized using InDesign “Data Merg”), designed ads for clients as well as digital materials for them. I know I’m forgetting some things. I learned a lot there. Everything I know has been self taught and I do catch on quickly.
I was given the opportunity in 2019 to design the magazine as if it were my own. I started the design change with the Summer 2019 issue and gradually changed it to give it a more clean, sleek and sophisticated look with the following Fall & Winter 2019 issues and the final one being the Spring 2020 issue. In March when Covid hit the US all meetings/events stopped. Advertisers pulled out of the Summer 2020 issue and we were forced to go brown.
My time at the magazine ended in July when it was sold to another publishing company, as the previous owner was ready to move on to other adventures.
This was a fun career, no doubt. In those 25 years I worked with some amazing people and made some lifelong friends, in the office and out. I used to attend the Upper Midwest Convention and Visitors Bureau Fall Conference and I met some great people who are passionate about their careers and destinations. Really great people. And I will miss them all.
Today I’m working at Rainbow Play Systems® (RPS). It really was an adjustment for me. I’d been working from home for the last year and a half and when I wasn’t on “crunch time”, I worked from 8am to 5pm M-F. Pretty standard schedule. Now my hours are 6:30am to 5pm M-T. Fridays off are awesome. I’ve been there since late July 2020. In the Graphics Department we manage the social media calendar & create the assets to go with them, design eNewsletters & eBlasts using Constant Contact, print & digital advertising for distributors and photo manipulation for the catalog. I like to make sure the majority of the social media posts link to original content (blogs/News) on the RPS website. I really enjoy designing a cohesive look and feel for the brand throughout all platforms. I’ve really enjoyed writing blogs for Rainbow and I’m learning how to use proper SEO and keywords with those posts. I’ve found this pretty interesting so I’ve been learning that as well. One of my personal projects is doing interviews with distributors as a Get to Know Your Distributor blog series. Did you know there are more than 200 of them worldwide?
I work with some great people here, too. There are 4 of us in the marketing department. Having people to bounce ideas off of and learn from is definitely an asset!
When I’m at home, I’m usually sitting at my Mac and trying to learn the new trends and technologies in the design world. My current goals are masting WordPress and all of Adobe’s Motion Apps. I feel very confident with Adobe’s “Big 3.”
This is my first website with WordPress so I’m sure it will change frequently as I move along. I’ve created many with Weebly but that isn’t the one all the cool kids are using.
So that’s a little bit about me and what lead me here. Reach out if you have any questions. Thanks!