My art is created in a combination of collage from magazine clippings, painting, and embroider”y. You can find more at @madebyarianarg or contact me at [email protected] for inquiries about classes, workshops, or purchasing art.
Girasol — 10″x10,” Mixed Media — Embroidery over collage on painted canvas
Over my 2+ years at Accenture Federal Services/Fjord, I worked as a project manager and team lead for service design, product design, and rapid prototyping engagements with 7 clients across 4 agencies.
As the project manager, I worked with the Design Leads and clients to set and execute strategies for the projects. I facilitated Agile sprint meetings, ad hoc discussions, and planned workshops with my clients and teams.
Across the projects, I also supported research and design efforts, and wrote and edited the deliverables we produced.
Service Design Engagement —Research Readout
Role: Creative direction, writing, and editing
Research approach
Current state map
Themes & opportunities
Pain points & solutions
73-page research readout summarizing months of research, identifying pain points, and providing solutions
Service Design/Rapid Prototyping Engagement — Research Readout
Role: Editing
Findings: Culture of continuous improvement
Insight: First impressions matter
83-page booklet summarizing 4 months of research, identifying pain points, and providing solutions
Service Design Engagement — Findings & Recommendations Report
Role: Creative direction, writing, and editing
Table of contents
Recommendations: Workflow
Future state map
67-page findings and recommendations report identifying opportunities for improvement
In 2019, Pew Research Center wanted to expand their reach with the general public via newsletters while using all the information already available within their archives. I collaborated with the Engagement Editor to create automated email series intended to teach readers about various topics within Pew Research Center’s wheelhouse.
We pitched the idea to leadership and created a proof of concept over a few months. To do this, I managed a cross-disciplinary team in ideation, content creation, design, review and release of the email course. This included:
Creating a project plan
Editing email course content
Collaborating with a graphic designer to produce the template design
Researching and developing a strategy for implementing these newsletters within MailChimp
Setting up and publishing the emails and landing pages
Producing a video ad for our first course
After our pilot course on U.S. immigration was released, I organized and participated in a panel at the Online News Association’s 2019 conference titled, “Use Email Automation to Deliver Mini-Courses and Activate Your Archives.” Alongside other newsletter editors that I recruited, I shared learnings from the experience of going through our pilot. I also prepared the presentation slides and one-sheet guide with best practices and tips for attendees.
For 7 years, I’ve been creating Galentine’s Day cards for my friends using food puns and a variety of evolving illustration styles including digital illustrations in Illustrator and Procreate and hand drawn watercolor paintings.
In the midst of working from home during COVID-19, the Accenture Federal Digital Studio morale committee wanted to gift the Studio team something unique and uniting. Because the Studio previously held Thanksgiving potlucks in person, the idea to create a cookbook of special holiday recipes was born. We had also recently lost a member of the Studio who was an avid baker and wanted to create the book in her memory.
I led the team in the creation of the cook book by creating a project plan, building a team of volunteers to help design the book and gather recipes, laying out content, providing art direction, editing the content, and coordinating the printing and delivery of the books.
We created the 70-page book with around 40 recipes and sent it to print in less than a month. The books were delivered to each Studio member’s home in early January. We got wonderful feedback about how special the book was and how it helped bridge some of the gap created by the distance created by COVID.
A close friend of mine had a baby in 2021. She loves magic and poetry, so I came up with the idea to co-create a book for her baby during her shower. I then had to make a plan for involving all her loved ones while keeping it a secret.
My sister and I wrote 16 verses for the book before the party. Then at the shower, each of my friend’s loved ones was assigned a monster representing a different number from 1 to 10 that they had to draw. For example, a monster with 1 horn.
All the illustrations were sent to me and my sister, who cleaned up the illustrations and turned them into outlines in Illustrator. I designed the layout of the book InDesign, incorporating other icons with the monster illustrations and then sent it to print.
First pages
Monster spread 5
Monster spread 9
Little Witch and the Monsters Who Came For Tea Cover
In June 2019, Pew Research Center released new data on unauthorized immigrants. As part of the promotion and outreach strategy, I led a team of researchers and a video producer/editor to create an explainer video.
I managed the entire process of producing this video from initial concept to script creation to publication plans.
As a first step, I led brainstorming sessions to identify the target audience and goal for the video. The final video was produced to engage the general public by explaining the how and why behind the new data in a simplified way.
I then wrote the script, managed the schedule, assisted during filming, and facilitated the feedback process among all stakeholders.
Researchers at Pew Research Center wanted to create an interactive, digestible way for journalists and policy makers to engage with new data on foreign graduates of U.S. higher educational institutions who worked or sought employment under the a U.S. government program after graduation.
I led a team of researchers, designers, and developers to take on the challenge over three months from initial idea to final product.
Through various brainstorm sessions, I worked with the team to identify the goal and target users of this data and product. From there, I led discussions on the design and content of the product, which went through various iterations throughout the process.
The Tenure Facility is an institution that provides grants to advance land and forest rights and livelihoods of indigenous and local communities. Through 2017, it was incubated by the Rights and Resources Initiative.
Our goal for the website was to showcase the history of land rights in relation to the initial projects funded by the Tenure Facility. I worked with web developer consultants as well as internal and external stakeholders to develop a storytelling template. Its first implementation was the history of Indigenous Peoples’ land rights in Indonesia. This involved:
Determining key audiences/users and their needs, as well as functionality and content requirements for the template. As we built the template, we also input information for the first use, the Indonesia timeline.
Gathering photos, writing, and editing copy, and working with video producers to create videos for the timeline.
Managing the feedback and design ideation process between our consultants and our internal team.
Presenting the timeline to key stakeholders for review and approval.
Rights and Resources Initiative is a global coalition of over 150 organizations dedicated to advancing land and resource rights of Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant Peoples, local communities, and women.
In 2016, I led a redesign of the organization’s website. The site was behind in design and technical best practices, organized in a confusing way, and failed to portray the global coalition’s work, impact, and reach. In order to effectively execute the website’s refresh, I managed and followed a multi-step process, which included:
Examining the website’s Google Analytics data to determine key content areas and conducting interviews with staff to identify the main concerns with the design and functionality of the existing site.
Using the gathered information to develop an infrastructure for the site and create a sitemap and early wireframes for key pages.
Auditing the content on the site to map out which pages needed to be edited, translated into French and Spanish, or created from scratch.
Developing a contract and project plan with web developer consultants to execute the rebuild of the site.
Writing, editing and designing content for the site, including page text, new audience icons, and header images.
Managing the review, editing, and debugging of the site by liaising with the web development consultants as well as internal and external stakeholders.