I’m a Bangor, Maine brand designer, strategist and artist.
Branding really lights my fire - especially for businesses and organizations that do meaningful work. I employ deep strategy and market research to craft psychologically compelling, consistent and workable brand solutions for businesses and organizations. For me, it scratches a problem-solving itch that goes far beyond designing “to spec.”
Six years into my journey as a brand designer, I’ve had the pleasure of designing brands for dozens of businesses and nonprofits that serve their communities in innovative ways.
My clients have spanned for-profit LLCs, to B-corps and L3Cs, to 501c3 non-profits. I believe that every type of organization can do powerful good in their community.
My entrepreneurial story
I was raised by two self-employed, creative people in Eddington, Maine. My mother was a production artist, later pivoting to graphic design and artisan jewelry making. My father was a highly skilled carpenter, small business owner and inventor. He had a way with systems - which for him meant machines, architectural designs, trades work, even philosophy.
I grew up around entrepreneurship, so I had a real appreciation of the struggle and innovation that goes into building businesses, right from the beginning.
Given this strong family history of self-employment, it’s surprising that I didn’t see it as a viable path for me. Both my parents and I both expected that I’d take a traditional route - and I tried.
Traditional high school wasn’t a good fit
I struggled to adapt to my rigid college preparatory school while dealing with depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Their program lacked flexibility, accommodations or support for student differences.
Eventually, I dropped out— and was lucky enough to be able to enroll in an alternative, democratically run school based in Blue Hill, Maine. There, I was given almost unheard-of freedom, even going so far as to construct my own curriculum. I thrived there, graduating with strong relationships with teachers and students.
It was the beginning of what would become a defining theme. When I did it my own way, when I had the freedom to experiment and create my own path, I was successful. Freedom, innovation, creativity - in education and in life - these were literally lifesaving.
I tried to go traditional again when I went to college…
I went for the science track - even though I really was drawn to design, art, and humanities. I was struggling hard trying to memorize all those trees, rocks, and chemical formulae.
Worse, I was slowly getting sick.
At age 25, I had a moment where I got so fatigued while on campus that I couldn’t walk back to my car in the parking lot. I was terrified. I just knew I couldn’t keep going like this. And soon after, I dropped out of school - for the second time.
Later, it would be confirmed that I had ME/CFS, a severe, multisystem chronic illness that flared up in response to exertion of any kind.
I slowly became totally bedbound, hypersensitive to light and sound, and unable to even sit up for more than five minutes.
My future — as I had known it — was totally over.
For years, I was in and out of bed, but mostly in.
The positive thing was that this period would give me a lot of time. I spent it doing the things that I actually was drawn to, like art, web design, and illustration. I stopped making things so hard for myself.
I found that I’d been heading down a path I wasn’t interested in, just because I thought I was supposed to.
I think a lot of clients I work with can actually relate to this realization very well.
But now my life as I had known it was gone.
I needed to forge my own path. All the traditional ones were closed to me.
When traditional employment and school became impossible, the only thing left was to become an entrepreneur - to do it my own way.
Eventually I went back to college — online, this time — to study communication and graphic design.
And I started designing and illustrating, building my business BoyPilot Goods, a retail and wholesale brand focused on stickers, shirts, and other printed products. In the beginning, I designed products on my laptop and shipped them right from a table that rolled over my bed containing all my shipping supplies.
In 2020, I graduated from college, a degree I had completed from bed, and celebrated with a Zoom call with friends and family. In 2021, BoyPilot Goods became a top 1% Etsy shop generating a full-time income and I began wholesaling nationwide.
Design and branding caught my attention in college - and held it.
In college, I had taken a class in branding and logo design. I used the skills from that class and others to land my first real-world branding client. I found that I absolutely loved helping my clients create polished, exciting, beautiful brand identities. I believed in their missions and the good they were doing for their communities. I wanted them to look their best and have all the tools they needed to succeed.
I also saw that logo design, collateral and even branding packages were not enough. Clients needed to know how and why to implement the assets. They needed systems that could help clients navigate their offerings and end up saying yes to their desired conversions. They needed strategy.
I found that many small businesses and nonprofits were dramatically under-utilizing their assets. Clients came to me with certain needs, but I was identifying others they hadn’t seen yet and designing solutions. My commitment to delivering both branding systems and deep strategic thinking was now the leading edge of what I offered.
I’m still disabled. I’m still chronically ill.
But I built a life that works for me, and that makes all the difference.
The same things that make it so rewarding to work for myself also make me passionate about serving other changemakers. And most importantly, those who steward the educations of the changemakers of tomorrow — youth-serving and school-partner organizations. Those who imagine education differently remind me of the trailblazing teachers who created my alternative high school, a haven for kids who didn’t fit the mold.
I design for those who are called to make a difference.
My education
Southern New Hampshire University - BA Communication, 2020. Summa cum laude.
IE University - Brand Identity and Strategy Certificate, 2025
University of Michigan - User Experience Research and Design Micromasters, 2018