Creative Direction

I have been fortunate to learn among wonderfully creative peers in the two-plus decades I’ve been working professionally. As a young visual designer, I was mentored by a creative director who believed in collaborative teams where no one worked in a silo. As I grew and evolved as a designer, I discovered I had a knack for coaching visual peers. Some creative roadblocks need a major reset but many just need the gentle direction to show how a simple tweak can open a design’s potential.

DJB Design provides editorial illustration for a digital magazine called The Lede, a daily subscriber product for Alabama Media Group in three of Alabama’s largest Alabama cities. As Creative Director, I advise our designers to create compelling covers that align visuals and copy. This is especially important on days where our creative is completely conceptual.

Prior to launching DJB Design, I served as regional director of the design and editing hub for Advance Local’s print products. Leading 45 visual designers, content designers, and editors in 5 states, I worked to help our staff understand the importance of the dual-effort storytelling need for visuals and copy. This team worked to tell the stories of the biggest news events of the day for local and national stories, from major sports events to presidential elections that shifted how we functioned as a democracy.