About Me
The story behind the work.
Historian. Banker. Prepress designer. Web design manager. The path wasn't straight — and that's the point.
"I came to UX through the back door — and I wouldn't change a thing."
Historian. Banker. Prepress designer. Web design manager. The path wasn't straight — and that's the point.
"I came to UX through the back door — and I wouldn't change a thing."
My first career was banking. I managed a branch, led a four-person team, and eventually landed on the Branch Transformation team — a cross-departmental initiative tasked with analyzing and modernizing how a billion-dollar institution operated for the people inside it and the customers it served. I didn't have the vocabulary for it at the time, but that was systems thinking and user-centered process design. It shaped everything that came after.
When I transitioned into design, I joined Vision Graphics (formerly Nutis Press) as a prepress graphic designer — learning digital, screen, and offset print methods from the ground up. But I kept noticing problems with the company's web-to-print platform: poor navigation, missing product mockups, cluttered templates, no SEO. Nobody had asked me to fix them. I started working on it anyway.
Analyzing where processes broke down, where people got frustrated, and how restructuring systems could make things work better — that was my first real UX work.
I built templates. I tested platform features. I documented what was broken. Within 18 months I was promoted to Web Design Manager — not because the opportunity landed in my lap, but because I'd already been doing the work. That promotion came with a bigger challenge: converting the platform into a fully branded enterprise web store for Coca-Cola Consolidated (shown in my portfolio with anonymized visuals as Meridian Beverage Co.), coordinating across four external vendors, implementing a Punchout-to-Ariba procurement integration, and collaborating with their internal UX team on brand compliance. We launched in May 2024.
A role where systems thinking, visual craft, and a genuine interest in how people interact with things all have a home — whether that's UX, web design, or graphic design.
Outside of my production work, I've designed event materials for Epiphany Lutheran Church for three consecutive years, created brand identities and illustrated book covers for freelance clients, and built my own print-on-demand platform at creativepalmer.com to sell original illustrated artwork. The enterprise B2B store I led reached $208,445 GMV across 560 purchase orders, 271 ship-to locations, and 72 distribution-center markets. I'm proud of those numbers — and more proud of the thinking behind them.
From bank-wide process design to a variable-product print catalog, I look for the structure underneath — what repeats, what breaks, and how to make it scale.
Hand illustration, brand identity, editorial layout, and press-ready production. I care about how it looks and how it actually outputs.
Information architecture, user flows, and friction-reduction. Design that serves the people using it, backed by testing rather than taste alone.
Rebuilt the platform's information architecture, navigation, and checkout experience. Led the Meridian Beverage Co. enterprise platform conversion — wireframing, vendor coordination, Punchout-to-Ariba integration, and brand compliance. $208,445 GMV across 560 purchase orders.
Learned digital, screen, and offset print production. Identified UX problems in the web-to-print platform on my own initiative — built the foundational template library, tested platform features, and established preflight QA procedures. Earned the promotion through the work itself.
Brand identity, print collateral, event design, illustration, and book-cover design for small businesses and non-profits. Ongoing work for Epiphany Lutheran Church. Illustrated the book cover for Jake Brown's novel Reincarnation.
Led a four-person team across operations, marketing, and compliance. Served on the Branch Transformation team — analyzing bank-wide processes to position the institution for growth as it crossed the billion-dollar threshold. Completed the Bank Management Program across 10–12 departments.
Formal design education in visual communication, typography, layout, and brand identity — completed while working full-time at VCNB Bank.
Research, analysis, and the ability to synthesize complex information into coherent narratives — skills that show up in every case study and design document I write.
Information architecture, user flows, wireframing, and conversion optimization — designing experiences that reduce friction and serve the people using them.
Logo design, brand systems, event collateral, editorial layout, and print production — from concept through prepress and press-ready files. Now extending into motion →
End-to-end WooCommerce platform management — from catalog architecture and product-page design through checkout optimization and SEO.
Pickerington, OH · open to remote, hybrid, or in-office
Available for projects · jpalmdesign.com
UX design, web design, and graphic design roles
2026
Open to UX design, web design, and graphic design roles. Available for freelance projects.
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