So, you are curious about me. Good! Curiosity is a wonderful disposition to have.

As you can tell by the website, color is important to me. The world is filled with colors and art makes them come alive. With colors, art can make you feel all kinds of emotins or reflect what the artist is feeling. Now that you know that I love all the colors let's dive into my career as a graphic designer.

As a student I started my internship at a TV station in Duluth, MN. This was my first real experience in an office setting. However, I didn't stay in the office. I assisted with onsite commercial shoots, helped with corporate events and designed graphics for the Christmas parade I attended with the TV station team. This was an excellent experience.

After my internship I started my career in the newspaper industry. Working at a newspaper seems like the opposite of TV but there were still tight deadlines and high expectations. During my time at SPC Printing Inc. I excelled in the puzzle solving activity known as grocery ads. Besides multiple grocery store ads I also designed car dealership ads, realtor ads and smaller ads for local businesses. My co-workers taught me so much while I was at SPC Printing, Inc.

I found myself moving from the great white north to the Twin Cities which is three and a half hours south. I know I’m not fooling anyone, the Twin Cities is still the great white north. I was hired by Crystal D where I created memories for people receiving corporate awards, plaques and trophies. Producing art for crystal awards is a unique challenge. As a production artist I had to make all logos, text and images etchable. This meant I had to do my best to stick to brand standards for company logos. The job was a challenge but knowing people would cherish the award I worked on definitely made it all worth it.

After living in the Twin Cities for a few years I started to look for volunteer opportunities. Anime Twin Cities is an organization that annually hosts a three day event in the spring. The organization holds the three day event to earn money to give to multiple charities. Giving a scholarship to a student to visit Space Camp is one of my favorite ways Anime Twin Cities gives back to the community. I attended a public meeting in 2015 and joined the Themes Department for Anime Detour, the three day event. During my time in the Themes Department I started out as a graphic designer. Around 2017, the head of the department asked me to be sub-head of the department to help him maintain art requests and other communications between other departments. In 2023, the head of the department retired and the exec team promoted me as head of the Themes department. This role helped me learn delegation and I uplifted my team with encouragement. I was always there to give them feedback or deal with any issues they were having. While I was part of Anime Twin Cites, I designed banners, event signage and put together the sixty-eight page program guide for the event. This was a wonderful experience and I enjoyed my time volunteering for a community that shares my interests.

After Crystal D I was hired by 3M as a contract worker. My role consisted of setting up the new intranet site for 3M’s employees. The new site was being housed on Microsoft SharePoint, a software I had never used before. I am always learning so I knew I would pick up SharePoint and be an effective member of the team. My confidence grew in my new role and collaborating with global, 3M clients was a highlight. Sadly, I left this role for six months due to a 3M contract worker policy. In July 2018 my manager contacted me and asked if I would like to come back. I was overjoyed and said I would. A few years later I am still with 3M as a service worker. My role has grown leaps and bounds. I continue to work with 3Mers from around the globe in the SharePoint website, I learned SQL, design website prototypes in Adobe XD and I am starting to teach myself about accessible documents.

No matter where I am or what my job title is I am always going to learn, grow and be creative.

Like the colors used on this site I hope these words put a smile on your face.

Sheri C. Koos