Welcome to my portfolio! Glad to have you here — feel free to sit back, relax, take a minute to "get to know" me (granted, I do not look like the monitor that you see before you.)
Of course, I would prefer to have a face-to-face interview (if you are a company that is in need of a pretty darn good web designer), but for now, I will be content with this venue since you've either:
• Stumbled onto my portfolio from my gigglechick.com website
• Come here directly from a resume that I've sent
• Just happened upon my site because the fates drew you to me
A little background on myself — besides the cold, hard facts that are in my resume — growing up I always knew I would be an artist (although there was a brief period where I thought I would become a jockey in the Kentucky Derby, but since I am 5'6" those dreams have since flown out the window). Before long, my hard work of campaigning throughout grammar and high school - by drawing unicorns for classmates, doodling cartoons for friends to give their boyfriends, and never saying no to any art task that was needed — gave way to my being chosen Best Artist in the Senior Superlatives.
No, I am not sitting around on my keester reliving my "glory days" in high school. I went on to shave my head and enter The University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Going in, I had the idea of becoming an illustrator... alas, that elective was filled to the brim during first semester, leaving me stranded in something I'd not heard of: Industrial Design.
Problem solving mixed with design — AND illustration!!? Not to mention, there were only 12 kids in that elective. Why, I could actually get a job outside of college if I kept up with this! So I did… flash forward four years.
(Did I not mention that I was going to go down memory lane? Perhaps I should have prepared you for that and suggested you grab a beverage.)
I graduated with a B.S. in Industrial Design... and waitressed for a month after college.
Then I proceeded to find a position down the shore (where I live) where my sole purpose was to scan letterheads then "clean them up" pixel by pixel in Paintbrush so they could be electronically faxed. I was there for 2 years. I dreamed in pixels. I needed to find a job in Manhattan.
And so I did. I became a designer at a promotional product company called Fisher & Barr in the Flatiron District. We had clients like the World Wildlife Federation and Dunkin Donuts — and I did a lot (A LOT) of logo placement as well as technical drawings... not to mention many illustrations. A good amount of their products were bags (totes, etc) and they needed illustrations of them. I was their go-to girl.
After a year, I saw an ad for Nine West. They were looking for a handbag/hardware designer. I went to the interview, did "test" illustrations and was hired immediately. For the next year I designed the hardware (little metal pieces that are found on the handbags) and also branched out to design their accessories. When I returned for my high school reunion, I must tell you that it was neat to see 15 of my former classmates wearing my designs! This led me to a 3 week stint in South Korea overseeing the production of the products. It was an interesting time, but I wanted to find something with more "instant gratification."
The Web. The year was 1997. I'd only dabbled with email... never had even seen a website. Yet, there in the New York Times, there was an advert for a Web Designer. I went on the interview. Somehow between mocking the cat that they had roaming their apartment (which was the office) and talking about design, they gave me the job. Okay, so I never mentioned that I didn't know how to code, so I went home that night and proceeded to teach myself how to write HTML. That was when I began my two years at Fusion Design in Jersey City . I learned so much there, designing for web and print. With such clients as ABC (I designed the abcchildrenfirst.com site as well as worked on layouts for their in-house magazine, Ink , not to mention, the Children First print pieces), Miller-Freeman (I was their illustrator for Insurance & Technology Magazine), and Advance Internet (I helped design NJ.com, MassLive.com, SILive.com) to name a few.
Fusion Design was a great company, but, I wanted to work back in New York City. I went on an interview at Methodfive and was hired 45 minutes later. It was 1999, the days of milk and honey for web shops. The days consisted of walking in at 10am, having a bagel the size of your head and designing sites for FOX.com, pseudo.com, LenoxCollections.com, theStreet.com — around 4pm beer was supplied and there was more designing — relaxed and content in our Aeron chairs, the company didn't think twice about working our tails off, talking about internet architecture til 1am. Life was good. In November of 1999, I decided to throw caution to the wind and I began performing stand-up comedy throughout New York. One of the best feelings in the world is hearing a crowd guffawing. Seriously, folks, it's the best.
In Spring of 2000, methodfive was bought by Xceed. In the Fall of 2000, Xceed let 100 people go. A week after being cut from the team, I was hired by Digitas to become a Web Art Director for their client, AmericanExpress.com. While there, I also created mock-ups for Aveda.com to pitch to them. Ultimately, in the Summer of 2001 (two days before my birthday), Digitas also had a 90 person layoff.
What was to follow is what I call my "dry spell". Here's the timeline:
— Layoffs at Digitas.
— Mother has surgery on aorta. I go to take care of her. I work on tan while thinking to myself "I will regroup, take the summer off, do a little freelance and then send the resumes out in September."
— My tan is tremendous for a pasty Irish girl.
— Monday the 10th, I sent out 50 resumes to various companies in New York City .
A company is finally interviewing for open positions. I am hired at Ajilon – a recruitment company specializing in finance, office and legal positions. I was pulled onboard to rebrand their company and, in turn, create their new websites. Over the next two and a half years, I designed ajilonfinance.com, ajilonoffice.com, ajilonlegal.com as well as their Canadian branch of ajilonpinstripe.com. Ajilon also had partnerships with resume.com and cornellinternational.com who tapped me on the shoulder to design their sites. Besides the external sites, I also created their sales emails and their company-wide intranet. As well web design, I was also creating print pieces and corporate powerpoint presentations whilst there.
In the summer of 2004, they decided to use an outside company with a team of designers to handle what I'd been creating. Once again, it looked as if I would be working on my tan. Good news! The tan stayed pretty light as I began freelancing at a company called IMC Group where I created flash movies for Dentyne Fire and Tango. In October of 2004, I was hired by Charming Shoppes Interactive to design their FashionBug.com and Catherines.com websites and sales emails.
In 2006, I branched out on my own and combined my love of stand-up comedy with my knowledge of web design. I started GigglechickInteractive.com and have designed websites and social networking site layouts for top comedians such as:
Jim Gaffigan, Maria Bamford, Tom Papa, Lisa Lampanelli, Dave Attell, Steven Wright, Norm MacDonald, Matt Iseman and many others.
So...that has taken us up to the present day...
You're looking a bit groggy and have a bit of drool on the corner of your mouth... You nodded off a bit, didn't you? It's okay... reading it's a bit bland — as I suggested in the beginning of this long-winded page, it'd be great to have me come in for a personal interview.
Feel free to contact me! The email is erin@erinsportfolio.com (as well as gigglechick@gmail.com ) or give a call: 732.458.5027
All the best and I hope to hear from you!
Erin Patrice
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