Professional Summary

I’m Ryan Cole, a dedicated and detail-oriented graphic designer with over 15 years of experience creating impactful visual content for print and digital media in fast-paced, collaborative environments.

Experience

Shaw Industries, Inc.

Graphic Designer January 2022 – Present

  • Provided design services to multiple brands as part of the in-house creative team
  • Created designs and templates for brochures, catalogs, print/digital ads, trade show graphics, and more
  • Researched and implemented time-saving workflow improvements and automations, reducing time to complete common production design tasks by as much as 80%
  • Collaborated with internal teams, partners, manufacturers, and print vendors to ensure quality and consistency
  • Spearheaded development of a new product catalog, handling all design and production tasks and making quarterly updates

Echelon Fitness

Graphic Designer June 2021 – January 2022

  • Created design deliverables for multiple brands, including: web graphics, social media content, ads, tear sheets, retail packaging, event graphics, brochures, and manuals
  • Took ownership of product manual redesign as part of a rebranding effort, handling layout, typography, copy, photography, and production design
  • Collaborated with engineers, manufacturers, print vendors, and legal teams to ensure quality and accuracy

Shaw Contract Flooring

Freelance Graphic Designer October 2019 – June 2021

  • Took ownership of several high-profile projects, including printed and digital materials for new product launches, brand initiatives, and internal support documents
  • Assisted with company-wide rebranding efforts by creating new and updating existing brochures, catalogs, tear sheets, and other materials
  • Developed templates and various workflow improvements for the design team, saving time and improving quality and consistency
  • Offered assistance and instruction to the team regarding design software (e.g., Adobe Creative Cloud apps)
  • Was always available for overflow work, and took over responsibilities and existing projects from another designer who left the company

Shaw Industries, Inc.

Contract Graphic Designer March 2018 – September 2019

  • Updated hundreds of pages of catalogs, brochures, tear sheets, and other materials as part of a rebranding effort
  • Developed a new look and system for creating hundreds of tear sheets and catalog pages, as well as automated certain parts of the process, saving time and money
  • Created illustrations to be used as assets in magazine ads, trade show displays, and other materials — including a large trade show display wall that I fully developed and illustrated
  • Worked on various other design projects as needed; e.g., e-books, magazine ads, signage, trade show graphics, and more
  • Won the Talent of the Quarter award for Q2 2019 (Cella, formerly BOSS Group) based on my performance at Shaw

AVM Enterprises, Inc.

Graphic Designer / Marketing Coordinator March 2016 – March 2018

  • Created various printed and digital materials including mail pieces, brochures, catalogs, marketing emails, website banners, and trade show graphics
  • Helped brainstorm and wrote copy for ads and promotions
  • Sourced and learned to use third-party software to automate a portion of catalog and price list creation, resulting in massive time savings for the small design team
  • Worked with vendors to coordinate print mail, email, and fax campaigns, as well as performed all associated duties (brainstorming, copywriting, design, list management, and printing and preparing materials in house)
  • Worked with industry representatives to produce scheduled promo pieces for industry publications

Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

Senior Prepress Technician / Production Artist September 2006 – September 2015

  • Created and edited interior artwork for textbooks and journals
  • Evaluated submitted artwork and assigned piece-by-piece revisions for third-party vendors
  • Developed preflight profiles using Enfocus PitStop Pro and Adobe Acrobat, which were used to prepare all final book PDFs for printing; was responsible for preflighting all files before publication
  • Worked with in-house developer to create scripts and apps to aid in the production workflow
  • Consistently performed above expectations and was swiftly promoted to the senior position on my team

Skills

  • Page layout
  • Typography
  • Illustration
  • Graphic design for print and digital
  • Prepress for traditional and digital printing
  • Adobe CC software (Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop)
  • Adobe Workfront PMS
  • Google Suite and Microsoft 365
  • Basic JavaScript, HTML, and CSS
  • Copywriting, editing, and proofreading
  • Effective communicator with proven instruction ability
  • Innovative problem solver for challenging design projects
  • Efficient multitasker, capable of managing multiple projects

Education

Savannah College of Art & Design

Bachelor of Fine Arts, 2006

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