welcome to my FAQs

welcome to my FAQs

IT FEELS CONCEITED TO HAVE A FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS SECTION, BUT TRUST ME WHEN I SAY I GET ASKED THE SAME QUESTIONS A LOT

…and for good reason, I promise that you’ll never find another like me

if you have more questions that aren’t answered here, please reach out to me on social media. I click-clack away on there all day and reserve my email for serious junk ☾⋆｡𖦹 °✩

WHERE CAN I BUY YOUR DESIGNS?

My designs end up all over the globe. From sports stadiums to radio shows, to tour merch stands, to retail locations, to webstores. Most designs are exclusive runs to a specific vendor or location and are not available online. If you want to hunt one down, check the artist’s or sports webstore, then try resale marketplaces. I am not always aware of where my work will be sold.

DO YOU ACCEPT BRANDING WORK FOR BUSINESSES?

In most cases, no. Business branding is not my preferred medium and I feel there are much stronger designers who specialize in it. In rare cases, I accept branding work if our creative visions align perfectly and my schedule allows for it.

WHAT KINDS OF PROJECTS DO YOU ACCEPT?

Merchandise is my top priority. This includes garment design, product development, merchandise design, and other items.

  • Custom Garment Design: Offering unique apparel designs that reflect brand identity and personal style, from t-shirts to hoodies.

  • Product Development Expertise: Collaborating closely with clients to bring their product ideas to life, ensuring functionality and aesthetic appeal.

  • Specialty Items: Designing distinctive merchandise, such as bobbleheads, that serve as memorable keepsakes and collectibles.

  • Creative Direction Projects: This can include everything listed above, and then some.

  • I am open to publication design, book design, and other boundary-less design forms.

CAN I HIRE YOU FOR CREATIVE DIRECTION?

Yes, though this is carefully accepted based on creative fit. I prefer to work with clients with an eclectic, unusual, or non-traditional creative look.

WHAT STYLES OF DESIGN DO YOU SPECIALIZE IN?

I have a wide range of aesthetic capabilities, but I specialize in two main ones: vintage revival & Avant-garde.

For vintage, I have worked with clients to create new “old” art that are true-to-era, nostalgic designs for fans of all ages. I describe this style as “a cool t-shirt my dad bought 25 years ago at a concert, but my younger sister stole it from his closet”.

Avant-garde is hard to pin down in words; think bootleg meets modernity. I love abstract, post-ironic art that confuses people of my parent’s generation. I also thoroughly enjoy designing merch with a campy, humorous twist, aka gas station-chic.

Other styles I enjoy creating include vintage cowboy, New England coastal collegiate, modern twist on art nouveau, and cyberpunk.

WILL YOU WORK FOR FREE?

Short answer, no.

Long answer, sometimes. I am at the point in my career where I am financially comfortable, and I can afford to donate my art & time to outside interests being the occasional book illustrator or small local opportunities. These are still accepted based on creative fit and my availability, though I view them more as passion projects than just client projects. If you or someone you know would benefit from having art donated, please contact me through my form.

CURRENT FAVORITE ALBUMS RANKED IN ORDER:

Ranking is based on frequency of rotation, point in my life when released, and album creative direction.

  1. Take Me Back To Eden – Sleep Token

  2. Without Fear (The Complete Edition) – Dermot Kennedy

  3. For Emma, Forever Ago – Bon Iver

  4. Freckled Angels – Ren

  5. Austin – Post Malone

  6. Happier Than Ever – Billie Eilish

  7. Wasteland, Baby! – Hozier

  8. HOPE – NF

  9. Random Access Memories – Daft Punk

  10. Tenacious D

WHAT ARE SOME LUKEWARM FACTS ABOUT YOU?

How kind of you to ask! I’m a weird little one, but I think I’m pretty cool. And I think you’d find me pretty cool, too.

  1. I did competitive dance throughout high school. My best memories of high school were in dance, I cannot stress the importance of funding programs like this enough. They’re lifesaving.

  2. I have ADHD (Attention-Deficit, Hyperactivity Disorder). My mom, dad, and my brother are also diagnosed with ADHD. I was diagnosed at a young age and can honestly say that gave me the advantage to understand myself better and to find the right workflows that work for me.

  3. I deeply enjoy reading about many topics but my favorites are non-fiction, poetry, and philosophy. Most times I am away from my computer, I am reading on my couch. My favorite American philosopher is Ralph Waldo Emerson.

  4. I love to draw fantasy worlds in Photoshop or Procreate.

  5. I am a fan of the STL Blues Ice Hockey Added fun fact: I had the unique opportunity to serve as a professional ice crew member for the St. Louis Blues in the NHL for four years. (LGB!)

  6. I ride a motorcycle. I have been riding for 10 years now and the freedom and calm it brings to the mind is like no other.

resonate with my silly story? i’d love to work together

I graduated from LU at the tiny age of 21 in May of 2017 with my Bachelors of Arts degree in Graphic Design. Despite having a job offer upon graduating, I had the opportunity to move to New York for a year and I bounced between branding agencies, to marketing design, to content creation for random brands. I moved back to St. Louis MO after a year as I felt it was the right move. I freelanced for more agencies on my own until I came across and then to merchandise.

In early 2019, I was still living in Missouri, working a dead-end agency job with D-tier clients and making a hair above the MO minimum wage. Amid the trials and tribulations of the job—stress that could rival a soap opera, management that considered work-life balance a nice idea—just not here, and a paycheck that could barely fund a coffee habit—my dream began to feel more like a distant memory. I started having anxiety attacks, and routinely began having anxiety attacks after hours. I applied to design job after design job on the evenings, weekends, and spitefully on the clock, desperate for a change but nothing ever came through. Its worth noting my coworkers at this agency were true, salt-of-the-earth people. As painful as our jobs were, we bonded over the comical bullshittery of our work. Right at the end of 2020, when the world opened back up from the pandemic, I came to a realization that it was scarier to stay where I am than to quite with no other job lined up.

If you’ve ever quit a job that truly broke you as a person, you know this feeling. If I could bottle one feeling, it would be this. Freeing is an understatement. It was the most joyous car ride home, even having put myself in a position where I couldn’t see the future or what my next paycheck would be coming from, I only new that I would be moving forward from where I was. I am still thankful for this experience as a constant awareness of how bad it can get, and where I am now.

Always the interviewee, never the interviewer. Why are cover letters a thing? Why are we still doing design tests? Why does design pay such little money? A person can only handle so many rejection emails before you start to think, “maybe I’m the problem”.

Narrator, play “What Was I Made For?” by Billie Eilish.

I began freelancing on my own and finding clients wherever I could online/locally. I am still thankful for this experience as a constant awareness of how bad it can get, and where I am now.

Fast forward to the Fall of 2021. Post-pandemic, I miraculously got an interview with a business that was a niche market within the merchandise and design industry, Success Brands. I was mindlessly mass-applying for jobs, and it had been months since I submitted an application. For the first time, my dream of working in the apparel design industry actually showed a glimmer of possibility. After 1 interview and 1 week of in-house freelancing, I got the job. Upon hearing the words “Success Brands would love to extend a formal offer for you to join the team”, I couldn’t possibly gather words to explain what this meant after months of rejection.

Working at Success Brands was my dream boot camp. I was working for every U.S. sports team under the sun and a few of my favorite music artists that I’ve listened to my whole life. I was surrounded by a team of truly incredible, passionate, and talented people. I had managers that believed in me, supported me, and helped me succeed. I had coworkers that challenged me, cultivated my inner artist, and respected me. For the first time in my career, I was heard & supported. I credit much of my success to the powerful design team, especially the empowering management.

My love for apparel design blossomed in this work environment. To the point where I found myself going home and experimenting with fun designs on the computer as ideas would pop up in my mind. I had finally found my footing and identity as a budding designer in merchandise. I picked up freelancing for anyone who could kick a couple of bucks my way.

In 2024, through a strange twist of events, I designed a City Connect Jersey for the Texas Rangers and we received a special request from the one and only Post Malone. He liked it so much that he wanted one for himself

How did You get here?

I was born in St. Louis, MO (home of the Gateway Arch, the tallest man-made monument in the US) and grew up primarily in Arnold, MO (a suburb of St. Louis about 30 minutes from Downtown, home of incredible St. Louis Blues, Cardinals, Anheuser Busch, and all of the bipolar weather that comes along with it). 

I started making commissioned drawings and paintings in middle school. I had always been a part of art clubs, I enjoyed the community and learning more about the various mediums and wanted to try them all. I was always the kid with a sketchbook in high school. One day, my business teacher heavily encouraged me to submit a logo of my design for a new, local produce company. The company was holding a contest with surrounding high schools for the best logo. To my surprise, my design (created on paper with only colored pencils) was the chosen winner. I got a $50 gift card and my friend’s mom helped me navigate my first intro to Adobe Illustrator. Soon after, my dad gifted me his old work laptop. After that it was just me, a pirated copy of Photoshop CS4, and a dream. I would scour the web and art forums and mash things together until my laptop burned my thighs.

I know you are curious about what the original drawing of this looked like, so here you are. colored pencils and all

In August 2013, I began at Lindenwood University in Missouri, majoring in Graphic Design. I absolutely fell in love with college life and most importantly, the classes and the people. About mid-way through, I started working for the ST. Louis Blues (NHL) outside of my classes. I was one of the ice girls and would work almost every home game. In my third year, a group of us girls got together and decided it is time for new uniforms. And so I offered my skills to create some visuals for a proposal to our managers. I went into this little project with no expectations, to our surprise, one of my designs was chosen and sent off to be created for the team! I recall it as one of my peak days to get to wear a uniform that I designed for the first time. And that is my first wiff of falling in love with designing apparel.

Here is 2016 me modeling the team uniform!