Online Resume of :: Heather M. Hoffman ::

Background I have been living in beautiful Bliss, New York about an hour south of Buffalo for 15 years now. I graduated from Pioneer Central High School in 1995 and attended two years at Genesee Community College. I haven't had the opportunity to finish my college career off with a degree yet but definitely wish to return. So that leaves me as a completely self taught graphic artist who has worked hard and asked many questions and made plenty of mistakes. In the past five years of my career (and my life) I have come to realize that a sincere interest and love for what you do in your career can be worth just as much as a college degree or years of formal training. That said, I also enjoy learning new skills to stay current in my ever changing field. I see my self as a forward thinking, open minded, creative individual who strives for perfection and who wants the opportunity to be as good an artist and a person as I can possibly be.

Work Experience/Education

April 2000 – Current
H&K Publications, Springville, N.Y.
Graphic Design Artist – I currently work in the art department in a MAC environment using Adobe software such as InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop on a daily basis. My responsibilities include, but are not limited to: design and layout of client’s ad material based on customer specs, from black ink to spot color to CMYK, full color. I type much of the copy and I edit and create graphics and/or photos for the ads. I have become well versed in the Adobe software and use all three programs to create logos, edit or create illustrations/graphics and to scan and edit photos used in advertisements in our publication.

April 1999 – April 2000
Vinyl Signz Plus, Chaffee, N.Y.
Graphic Design Artist – At Vinyl Signz I was responsible for the design and application of vinyl graphics and lettering for vehicles and other sign material. I worked in a PC environment in the SignLab program. I learned the entire process of vinyl graphics from working with the customer to create the desired effects to the design, production and application of the finished product.

Tools of the Trade

The software and tools I currently utilize on a daily basis:

- Adobe InDesign (layout of ad materials)
- Adobe PhotoShop (editing of photos/graphics)
- Adobe Illustrator (creation & editing of vector images/illustrations)
- Epson scanners
- MAC OS 9.2 (I can't wait to use OS X)
- Internet (Internet Explorer)
- Email (Outlook Express)
- Microsoft Word & Excel (I usually only use these programs when a customer emails ad copy in Word form or, for some unknown reason, in Excel)

Other skills that I find myself repeatedly using in the artroom are exporting photos/graphics customers enjoy dropping into Word to send us. I don't know why people think this is a layout program. Downloading photos & graphics from websites and off of email. Exporting and converting InDesign documents to .EPS or .PDF form. I am familiar with the Acrobat Reader program. I convert .PDF to Illustrator files regularly to extract photos, logos or graphics from ads laid out by other ad agencies. I have become quite skillful at using Illustrator to edit "camera ready" ads sent to us in .PDF form the wrong size, with typos and in need of spot color.

Other programs that I have used in the past include: - SignLab (back in the day at the sign shop, I couldn't even tell you who made the program). That was my very first exposure to a layout program. I took to it right away.
- Quark Xpress (about four years ago I used this program to layout a not-for-profit publications called Kids Courier) I have not had the opportunity to use the newer versions and would rather use Adobe products.

So in a nutshell, I have aquired quite alot of experience along the way, but I have a lot to learn and will relish every moment of it. Those aren't all of my talents. We actually cut and paste (by hand, with scissors and what not) ads onto old fashioned layout paper, which we then give to our dependable camera man who places them into his magic camera contraption and then produces negatives for the press in Hamburg to use to create our wonderful papers. We are in the process of phasing this out. Within the next year we hope to eliminate the need for layout paper and hope to be using our image setter for all of our papers and pages.

Contact Me Please feel free to contact me about freelance work or about any career opportunities that you become aware of. I'd greatly appreciate it. heatherm@graphic-designer.com Thank you for visiting ... come again! Please bookmark this site. Freelance Design