Head Of Marketing & Designs – Appsky- Double Major from Metro Community College (Web Design & Graphic Design)
- Design Application of Choice: Adobe Creative Cloud
- Creative Tools: Dribbble, Behance, concepting with sketches & mood boards
As we do with every year, the WordCamp Omaha planning committee was tasked with finding a local artist to help us brand this year’s event. When we came across Evynne Doue’s (pronounced: E-vin Doo-ee) work, her fun, colorful, and out of the box style stood out to us. The vote was unanimous in her favor and we got lucky again this year to find an artist to volunteer their time to our community cause.
Some of us had the pleasure of meeting Evynne at WordCamp Omaha 2016. She attended just to learn more about web design and WordPress for school. Who would have thought that two years later she would leave her mark on the history of WordCamp Omaha forever? With little direction and only a handful of concepts, she was able to deliver a fun and inviting brand around our event that we have gotten many compliments on.
This was kind of her goal. Not only does she work quite a bit with WordPress and had attended WordCamp in the past, but as a recent graduate from the Metro Community College (MCC) DIMA Program, she really wanted to show off her skills publicly in the community. After many sleepless nights, minimal free time, and a bit of stress/anxiety, she managed to wrap up her college career with a 3.9 GPA. She spoke highly to us of the MCC DIMA program and her instructors/mentors there, particularly Jim Wolf, Amanda Hoklin, Luann Matties, and Chloe Markham. She learned that the relationships formed during college were priceless.
We always love to learn where our artists inspiration comes from. “I always start all of my projects with an extensive amount of research and concept exploration/development.”, says Doue. “Being a very visual person, I’m able to map out different concepts in my mind so once I start sketching and begin working digitally, it’s just a matter of making what’s in my mind a reality.”
Last spring, Evynne had the pleasure of listening to Michael Bierut from Pentagram present multiple different design case studies at a daOMA event. So she looks to him and and others from Pentagram for inspiration. “In terms of local talent, freelancers like Bryan Findell (animator) and Will Riley (product developer) really inspire me. They’re also really good friends of mine.”, she explains. “The team at Fruitful Design is also really inspiring and extremely welcoming, so I like to pop into their office in Benson to say hi and bother them from time to time.”
We love working with designers and we are quite aware of the challenges that come from working in this field. Evynne told us, “Professional networking is everything and the sooner you start, the better.” In the two years leading up to her graduation, she attended all AIGA Nebraska (and other professional associations) events to build her professional network. Entering her work in AIGA Nebraska’s annual design showcase, SHOW, also got her some exposure. “Find a Networking Buddy! They hold you accountable and it’s normally more comfortable when you’re with another person.” She also went on to explain how she believes that volunteering produces the same impression that consistently attending professional events does.
To put this all in perspective she told us a great story about how she volunteered as a design mentor for Metro’s BringITOn program, which is an educational and competition-based tech program for high school students. At one of the sessions, she met Shonna Dorsey. After talking with her for not even a full 30 minutes, Shonna offered to have Evynne attend an Interface Web School class and present about web design. This then led to her getting hired as a Design Mentor for the Foundations of Web Development class at Interface, where she presented weekly to the students on different design-related subjects.
Doue now works full-time at Appsky. After working on some client-based branding projects and doing a lot of web design/development, she has been focusing on Appsky’s most recent internal brand development.
Evynne plans to stay in tech, but enjoys the the challenges that come from also working on print work occasionally. She hopes to one day sit on the AIGA Nebraska board and continue to be involved in our professional design and tech communities.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/evynne-doue/
Check out her website below: