I have been the manager of the UW-Whitewater Bookstore Custom Shop since 2021. Among other duties, I design and print apparel for campus’s diverse student organizations. I have to edit nearly every design that customers submit to some extent, but my favorite projects are the ones where I can start from scratch. On this page are just a few of my favorite and most involved shirt designs that UWW groups have asked me to create.

When I was first hired at the UW-Whitewater Bookstore as the Custom Shop manager, my strategy for this brand-new service was to design and print custom apparel when the student organizations and teams ordered it. Although this is a large part of what I do, it eventually became clear that a slightly different strategy was going to perform better in sales and be more useful to the Bookstore.

When we received our UWW brand license in 2023, I was finally able to make real UW-Whitewater merchandise. This was helpful to the Bookstore because I could design items for the store and print them in small quantities, rather than having our buyer order a large run of items that weren’t even guaranteed to sell.

From this concept, many ideas for limited edition and experimental items were born. We started doing popup shops and hands-on events to drive sales and to make the Bookstore a fun place to be.

These projects are the ultimate displays of my skill. For all of them, I did the design work and shirt prep, as well as a large amount of the marketing, tabling, demonstrations, and networking. I hope you will enjoy reading about them.

This was a personal project that turned into a huge undertaking and taught me so much!

In 2023, I moved to the Whitewater area and delighted in decorating my apartment: my tiny, tranquil oasis of color and artistic inspiration. This apartment included a set of gnarly, sliding closet doors full of chips and old smoke stains, which simply did not fit the vibe. I decided to make a huge, digital mural in two panels that I could install on the door to cover the ugly finish and bring some life to my small living room.

My concept was to include everything I loved most, because this was MY apartment, and nobody else’s! My favorite colors, pets, original characters, and clarinet all play starring roles.

Throughout this project, I was fighting with my file size. At several feet long and full of detail, I had to draw every object in its own file before collaging them all together at the end. Otherwise, my iPad simply wouldn’t have been able to handle all those Procreate layers.

Getting the project printed was another issue. Originally I was going to utilize the Media Lab at UW-Whitewater and purchase two large, laminated posters. However, it ended up being cheaper (and nicer) to order vinyl banners from Vistaprint. They weren’t capable of printing at the exact size of my doors, but I thought the tradeoff was worth it in the end.

For the first few years of the Custom Shop’s operation (approximately 2021-2024), the marketing campaigns, branding, and social media posts were largely my responsibility. I loved doing these tasks, but our exponential growth meant that it made sense to eventually hand them off to the Bookstore’s dedicated marketing team.

Here are some of my favorite posts that I created, combining design, illustration, and marketing skills in a way that I am exceptionally proud of.

In February of 2022, I designed and wrote the copy for the first version of the Custom Shop’s landing page on the UWW Bookstore’s website.

The concept, as with most of my Custom Shop branding at the time, was to match the UWW Bookstore, but with a creative flair to solidify the space as an artistic center on campus. It also had to be exceptionally informative, as we were a new and innovative service that most students had not heard of yet. I had to concisely explain what our role was and why a customer would want to choose our business over a large shirt manufacturer. I also took photos and videos to help the average viewer understand our work.

My idea was to make buttons in the shapes of paint brushes and splatters, which proved difficult when the time came for our web development team to code the page. Ultimately, I had to make some compromises on the button shapes so that they would be clickable and the page would be mobile responsive. The coders were also unable to use the fonts that I initially wanted, but we worked together to find close alternatives.

I had designed websites before in college, but the experience of working on a team to make a fully-functioning one was such an interesting process.

Date: Summer 2020

Media: Adobe Illustrator

Concept: I submitted a logo for a client-run design contest on 99designs.com. The client, Jane, knew she wanted a logo of a mermaid with red hair to represent her passion of photographing the sea, but she was open to seeing different illustration styles.

After receiving a handful of design submissions, Jane liked my illustration the best and decided to continue the project one-on-one. We tried different color combinations and poses at her request. Later, she asked me to design a business card with the logo on the front and creative freedom to explore an ocean theme on the back. I had fun with ocean puns and figuring out how to turn ordinary social media icons cute and thematic. This was such a fun project that I am still very pleased with!

Outside of formal jobs, I take commissions for pet portraits at craft fairs and on social media. Over the years, I’ve marketed myself and developed a fan base on Instagram (@gessogecko). On this page are some selections from the year 2020, when I was able to do quite a few pieces due to lockdown.

When these were made, I did my digital illustrations primarily in Adobe Photoshop with an old Wacom tablet. I have since gotten an iPad and the drawing program Procreate, which makes the process easier. I can also do traditional drawings in ink, colored pencil, and watercolor on paper.

Date: 2016 - 2017

Media: Adobe Illustrator 

Concept: As a graphic design student employee at UW-Whitewater's University Center, my responsibility was to create materials advertising events across the building’s different units, all with their own branding styles and guidelines. As a young designer, at first it was difficult for me to pinpoint how to change my art style for different events. For example, Warhawk Alley posters were supposed to have bright, exciting colors and bold shapes, while Roberta’s Art Gallery could be more painterly and subtle. I learned a lot at this job about how to choose and effectively align fonts. I also became more comfortable with starting new projects, trusting myself, and just putting something down onto the artboard instead of getting lost in research and color planning.

Making the event poster was usually the first step of the project for me, but most posters also had matching social media images, digital signage, and table tents.

Date: Fall 2016-Spring 2017

Media: Adobe Illustrator

Concept: When I was a college student, I worked as a graphic designer in the University Center. As a particularly strong illustrator, I was assigned the task of making fun social media graphics to celebrate holidays throughout the year. My supervisor gave me a list of core holidays that were needed, but I also had creative freedom to add in whatever niche ones I thought would be fun for students to know about, such as “Put a Pillow on your Fridge Day.”

I absolutely loved having ownership of this project, and I used it to stretch my style and challenge myself with new Adobe Illustrator techniques. Drawing primarily with the pen tool, I became a pro at understanding clipping masks and the pathfinder tool. I also became exceptionally efficient, with most illustrations taking only a couple hours to finish once I was deeply familiar with the process.