d e s i g nP O R T F O L I O

17 April, 2016

Prospective Employer

C/O John Doe123 Somewhere St. Creative City, CA 98765

Greetings John Doe,

Hi, my name is Erica Dostal and I am writing to apply for the position of Graphic/ Web Designer in your company. I am submitting the following cover letter and resume attached for your consideration. With a Bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design, an AA degree in English Composition, and a talent for coming up with creative solutions to common visual and business communication problems, I am confident that I will make a great candidate for your position!

My skills as a Graphic/ Web Designer you will find extend across a wide number of different platforms, including responsive web design, mobile app development, and the creation of print collateral. I am also experienced with many of today’s in-dustry standard design tools and softwares, including Adobe Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop, Muse, and Cinema 4D. I have obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in Graphic Design at California State University San Bernardino as well as an Associ-ate Degree in English Composition at College of the Desert, showing a consistent ability to communicate and solve problems successfully, both visually and verbal-ly. Please see my online portfolio at www.ericadostal.com to see samples of some of my past design work and projects.

I look forward to contributing to what already looks like an organization with a very exciting and worthwhile future. If you have any questions or would like to set up an interview please feel free to contact me anytime at (760) 442 - 9733. I look forward to your call and hope to talk some more with you about the position in person. Thank you so much for your time and consideration!

Sincerely,

erica dostal

erica dostalgraphic/ web designer experience

awards

education

softwares

Adobe Illustrator

BA in Graphic Design

skills

Illustration/ Sketching

Photo Editing

Logos/ Branding

Color Theory

Website Design

Mobile App Design

Ad Design

Layout/ Composition

Copy Writing

Motion Graphics Product Design

Animation

Desert Best Friend’s Closet

Silver medal in Addy’s student poster design competition

Design of DBFC promotional materials & social media graphics Public speaking & client presentation experience Communication & attention to details, satisfying needs of the client

Program Manager/ Student Assistant

Logo & branding designs used in “Joining Forces: Plant to Paper, The Veteran’s Initiative in the Arts” sponsored by the NEA and CAC

July 2014 - Sept 2014

AA in English Composition

California State University San Bernardino

College of the DesertPalm Desert, CA

San Bernardino, CA

Dec 2016

June 2014

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe InDesign

Cinema 4D

Adobe Muse

Adobe Lightroom

The first thing that interested me in design is the same thing that keeps me fascinated

by it today - it’s ability to tell a story with no words at all. Sometimes a design’s story is

short and sweet - so short that you might even be able to distill the whole piece down

to a single feeling or action like sadness or joy, running or falling. Sometimes it’s much

longer and has much more to say than can really be comprehended in a single view-

ing. These are the type of designs that you tend to revisit throughout your lifetime be-

cause they offer brand new insights and perceptions each new time you “read” them.

But whether embedded with many meanings meant to be discovered over a peri-

od of time or perhaps just a single meaning meant to be understood instantly, all de-

signs have an incredible, paradoxical, ability to be simultaneously simple and complex.

It’s the ease with which a design can be understood by the viewer, without the need

for any verbal or written language, that makes a design feel so remarkably simple. But

it’s the difficulty of conveying so much with so little, without the support of any writ-

ten or verbal language, that can also make creating a design so incredibly complex.

design statement

Fruiton demand

Brand experience “Fruit on Demand” was a brand iden-

tity project we worked on for CSUSB

health promotion. A new fruit stand

had just been introduced to the main

campus and our client was looking for

ways to increase both interest in and

awareness of the new service. Ultimate-

ly, the end goal for the new brand de-

sign was to help students view the

fruit stand as an accessible, tasty and

fun alternative to less healthy options

on campus. Keeping all this in mind,

I designed the following solution.

Newera type

In New Era Type, I was asked to design

a direct mailing brochure / poster ad-

vertising a new fictional lecture series

on typography. My goal was to promote

the event to other designers so I played

particularly with the fact that Stephan

Sagmeister and Herb Lubalin were

to be the main focuses of this series.

As they are world famous designers,

both with very distinctive, individual

aesthetics that I thought most design-

ers might be familiar with, I decided

to take elements from both of their in-

dividual styles and incorporate them

together into the mailer’s overall aes-

thetic. The brochure/poster would liter-

ally be a visual metaphor for the “merg-

ing” of the two great typographical

minds in the upcoming lecture series.

Poster & brochure

SCRAMmagazine

SCRAM magazine was a particularly fun

project where we got to take a fiction-

al travel magazine (called SCRAM) and

design it with our own particular style

and target audience in mind. For mine,

I chose to target a more middle class

audience, especially those seeking more

unique experiences and adventures

while traveling. Overall the magazine was

designed to be inviting and compelling

to the reader and, while luxurious, not

feeling overly extravagant and unrealistic.

Layout & composition

Wildwood parkneighborhood association

The Wildwood Park Neighborhood Asso-

ciation was a client that approached our

class with a big need for brand identity.

Around since the 50’s, the Wildwood

Park Neighborhood Association had ex-

perienced a lot of change in a very short

period of time, including changes in

population, diversity. and homelessness.

The association came to us with the de-

sire to create a brand that encourages in-

volvement within the community while

also helping them be perceived as a saf-

er, more family friendly neighborhood.

Brand identity

Illustrationvarious work

The following are some of my pencil

sketches and digital drawings. Their

dates of, and purposes for creation

vary and so do their different stories.

Sketches & illustrations

the veteran’s initiative in the artsJoining forces

Joining Forces: A Plant to Paper Proj-

ect was a project specifically funded by

the NEA (National Endowment for the

Arts) and CAC (California Arts Coun-

sel). It was a fun 4 month long project

where our military veterans gathered

together to pull invasive plants out

of the grounds of local parks and re-

serves. From there, the invasive plant

parts were recycled and used in a series

Event promotion

of therapeutic arts and writing work-

shops for veterans suffering from PTSD.

The program really did a phenome-

nal amount of good in many tradi-

tionally unrelated areas so our first

job as designers for the event was to

create a single powerful symbol that

brought all these elements of the proj-

ect together into one recognizable logo.

Wet Dogshampoo/ conditioner

Wet Dog was a fun 3D mod-

eling project where we got to

create a brand and product de-

sign of our choice. At the time, I

was taking care of a large, hairy

old dog who loved all things

wet and dirty - but not baths.

It only made things more diffi-

cult when bath-time came along

Product Design & 3D Modelingand the pet shampoo & condition-

er I was using didn’t turn out to be

very effective. This was how the

idea for Wet Dog - a fun, eye-catch-

ing and ironic brand for pets - was

born. The brand is designed to

make bath time more fun and

humorous for the owner, while

quicker and easier on their pet.

SaveAPetweb/mobile design

SaveAPet was a local nonprofit organi-

zation that supported a No Kill Animal

Shelter and Low Cost Pet Clinic near

my home town. Being an animal lover

and disappointed by the design (or lack

there of) of SaveAPet’s current website

I decided to try redesigning SaveAPet’s

website as a personal project. SaveAPet

Responsive website design

wasn’t funded on either state or federal

levels, so they relied entirely on dona-

tions and the support from the local

community to run. For this reason, I felt

it was particularly important that this

new website by responsive, engaging,

fun and professional in order to at-

tract support, volunteers and donations.