Location: Austin, TX (United States)

Profile Last Updated: April 28, 2009

Member Since: April 28, 2009

User Type: Design Professional

Disciplines: Graphic Design

Tags: print, photo retouching, graphic, packaging

Occupation: President at Gino Verna Studios

School: Art Institute of Philadelphia '1991

2nd School: - 

Description: I moved from Philadelphia, PA to Austin 2 years ago. I have been a print designer for 19 years and have worked in all aspects of the field, from photo retouching, typesetting catalogs full time for Advertising agencies to freelancing and managing projects from concept through to completion. During the last ten years, my work experience has mainly been doing contract design and production management for collectible trading cards for Inkworks of Morrisville, North Carolina. The cards focused on popular movies and television shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Smallville, Tomb Raider, Scooby-Doo etc. As a designer I found these projects particularly rewarding and challenging because they utilized all of my skills and experience. Hundreds of cards a month needed to be designed, typeset, photo-retouched, color corrected, sent to client for approvals and the final corrections and production had to be managed. It was also enjoyable working with the copy writers, digital imagers, licensees and licensors of the Hollywood properties. Often I created new styles, but I also had to match styles which already existed. Another benefit of the trading card experience was the expansive and sometimes experimental use of print. I designed cards to print on foil, did embossing, lenticular printing, and 3-D designing (promotional items that work with 3-D glasses). I find this a particularly beneficial skill with the resurgence of 3-D in the entertainment business that is going on.

Looking For: Friends, Networking

Interests: Brevity

Favorite TV Shows: sifl and olly, fawlty towers, the brak show, kids in the hall, strangers with candy, little britain (guess what? the family guy really isnt all that funny, shhhh)

Favorite Music: wedding present, PJ Harvey, divine comedy, stereo total, leonard cohen, pulp, stone roses, luna, galaxie 500, girls vs. boys, gang of four, the clash, decemberists, cooper temple clause, magnetic fields, McLusky, eagles of death metal, boomtown rats, built to spill, six by seven, belle and sebastian, blur, bob dylan, richard hawley, neko case, hank williams, sr., roger miller, the carter family, adam and the ants, pixies, neutral milk hotel, elvis aaron presley 60s soul, indie, britpop and good hip hop

Favorite Movies: magnolia, being there, one flew over the cuckoo's nest, best in show, waiting for guffman, swingers, shawshank redemption, good fellas, the big night, donnie darko, willy wonka, maltese falcon, secretary, amelie, my first mister, all the real girls, shaolin soccer, the graduate, gandhi, bugsy malone, let the right one in

Favorite Books: edward gorey, the very hungry caterpillar, where the wild things are, dr. seuss, curious george, flat stanley, the five chinese brothers, harold and the purple crayon, really rosie starring the nutshell kids, chicken soup with rice, the cheese monkeys

Quote: "i cried when i had no shoes...until i met a man who had no feet...and then i laughed...really hard"