EILEEN
LEEDS

Eileen Leeds

UX & UI | Visual Designer

Senior Visual Designer, 20+ years of experience building visual design systems for major media outlets, leveraging my product management expertise, facilitating precise content within proprietary design systems and content management systems (CMS). Excelling at managing design upgrades. Curate content with subject matter experts for audiences of 5K to 700K+ viewers. Win awards. BS in Illustration from Fashion Institute of Technology. Training at General Assembly, Maven.com & OReilly.com. Instructional Design at Quinnipiac University.

linkedin.com/in/eileenleeds  |  3leeds@gmail.com  |  Fairfield, Connecticut, USA  |  +1 646-283-9053 |  www.eileenleeds.com

EXPERIENCE

Design & Production Manager

DeSales Media  |  Brooklyn, New York & remote  |  March 2019 - July 2020

DeSales is the media & marketing arm of the Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn & Queens serving 1.5M+ parishioners via multiple digital media streams.

• Hired to redesign the diocese’s 100+ year old news publication, The Tablet, and train editorial staff to function in the Adobe Creative Suite - to edit and produce the weekly product.

• Presented two design paths for the product: 1. Fully modernized logo, typography and designs that translate well to mobile ultimately. 2. Same logo and improved design templates that cleaned up visibility, readability and production management. Number 2 was chosen to avoid disruption of marketing streams and audience familiarity.

• Developed The Tablet Jr publication with the diocese’s educational media services director and staff to deliver Catholic themed content to parochial elementary school students once a month. Successfully launched this product within 2 months, it is promoted still as a bonus product for Tablet news subscriptions. 

• Interfaced and coordinated with Advertising Sales staff to process advertising placements weekly, and special sections seasonally, improving the handoff of valuable revenue-producing advertising, with the potential to reach 1.5M parishioners,185 parishes.

• Partnered with the online production team to ensure quality designed news content passed from editorial to digital, including seasonal advertorial sections. 

• Lead meetings with News Corp and Advance Publications to explore print service advantages through their production facilities.

• Responsible for the timely processing of print editorial content to meet deadlines as staff adapted to new production requirements.

Senior Designer for region

Hearst Connecticut Media  |  Norwalk, Connecticut & remote  |  January 2014 - October 2018

Hearst Connecticut Media is a multiplatform news outlet that serves a growing Connecticut audience. They publish eight daily city news properties and 13 weekly local properties.

• Onboarded newly acquired major daily news properties with redesigned templates from Hearst corporate and inhouse templates.

• Interfaced with Hearst’s nationwide news groups to learn updated system workflows.

• Attended editorial meetings daily as art director to prepare visual content for breaking and long term news presentations and coordinated priorities with content stakeholders.

• Redesigned a group of 8 weekly publications for ease of composition by copy/production staff, clarifying Hearst Connecticut’s visual identity, 

• Prepared daily libraries of styled graphic elements for editorial, layout and online staff to enhance content presentations, mindful of visual accessibility hurdles for mobile viewers of news products.

• Data visualization of daily, locally, and nationally composed data sets, as handed-off by reporting staff for audience viewing and comprehension.

Senior Designer / Information Designer

New York Daily News  |  New York, New York  |  March 2000 - December 2013

NYDN has been a top local, national and international news source for over a century, now a property of the Tribune News Service.

• Daily product deadlines for complete, edited, curated visual content on demand for print and online. Designed content to flow with digital device accessibility in mind as it was distributed online from print workflows.

• Participated in developing digital functions as newsrooms expanded content streams.

• Explained diagrammatically breaking news events, with accessibility in mind, for viewers locally, nationally and internationally, in conjunction with top editors.

• Long term development projects for major enterprise news products, interpreting gathered content to create visual impact and ease of multilevel audience viewing, subjects such as Child Obesity, Terrorism in New York, War Overseas.

• Participated in multiple subject matter projects: Data Storytelling, Major News, Features/Lifestyles, Business, Sports, Advertising.

Communications Manager

Red Cross, Blood Services, Southeast Region  |  Savannah, Georgia, USA  |  1997 - 1999

Red Cross Blood Services has been the largest blood supplier and blood product distributor in the United States since 1940. The Southeast Region serves local cities and communities, and in the past served southeast South Carolina and upper Florida from their Savannah offices and labs.

• Interfaced with major media outlets in 3 states to prompt volunteers to donate blood.

• Designed communications and promotional materials to engage repeat and potential blood donors to attend blood drives in their communities.

• Wrote PSAs and Press Releases for public awareness and direct media communications.

• Upgraded communications content management system to Adobe products.

• Managed vendor interface for blood donor thank-you collateral production and distribution.

• Coordinated with National Red Cross HQ on national programs and issues.

SKILLS

Hard skills

• Art Direction / Creative Direction

• Multimedia Storytelling

• User Experience

• Project Leadership

• Adobe Creative Suite, InDesign, Photoshop, Acrobat, Illustrator

• Figma

• Data Analysis / Excel / Open AI

• Investigative Research

• Style Guides / Brand Guidelines

• Print Publication Design

• Researching new methods

• Communications Directives

• Iconography / Logos

• Illustration / Diagrams / Procreate

• Color Trends

• Scheduling software

Soft skills

• Strategizing with design novices

• Accessibility considerations 

• Project planning

• Communications, internal & external 

• Interdepartmental teamwork

• Enthusiastic work ethic

• Supportive to teams

• Trainer / Teacher

EDUCATION

Degree

• Illustration, BS
  Fashion Institute of Technology, SUNY New York, New York
  
  

Training

• Instructional Design
  Towards a masters level certificate
  Quinnipiac University, Hamden, CT

• UX Design Circuit
  General Assembly online

• Data Analysis Circuit
  General Assembly online

• Tableau software
  General Assembly online

• Adobe Captivate
  Certified 2019
  Instructional design software

• OReilly.com
  Tech training, subscriber since 2012

• School of Visual Arts,
  Pratt, Fairfield University
  Ongoing design studies
  
  
  

AWARDS

Catholic Press Awards

• Third Place 2020 - Illustration — Catholic Self-Care presentation, The Tablet

Society of Professional Journalists, Connecticut chapter  (CTSPJ), Hearst Connecticut Media

• Second Place 2017 - Circulation >40K — Page One — Trump’s Supporters

• First Place 2014 - Circulation >40K — Page One — Ruins Reborn series

• First Place 2014 - Circulation >40K — Informational Graphic — Ruins Reborn series

Associated Press Awards

• 2003 - Layout — D.C. Beltway Sniper Caught, New York Daily News

_______________________

Eileen Leeds  |  UX | UI  |  Visual Design

3leeds@gmail.com  |  646-283-9053  |  Fairfield, Connecticut, USA

http://www.linkedin.com/in/eileenleeds  |  http://www.eileenleeds.com