Hi! I’m Molly. I’m a creative professional, and by that I mean I bring my skills and passion to a project with dedication and fervor, whether designing a brand suite for a big client or hosting a crawfish boil at the river, or tenderly selecting a vintage handkerchief for my one-eyed dog. Charming anecdotes are a specialty of mine, along with brand strategy, creative leadership, and a broad range of visual and UX design skills.
I officially have a BFA in Design at The University of Texas at Austin, which I earned as a thirty-something during COVID. (I’m actually very cool, hip, fresh, young, but you try going to class full-time with the UT freshman cohort!) You see, before that I mostly credited myself a continuing education student at the School of Hard Knocks, self-taught late nights alone and volunteering for design-related tasks at odd jobs.
My grandpa owned an appliance repair company. He’d opened when he was around the same age as I was. He assured me that he didn’t know what he was doing either, and that it was perfectly reasonable and preferable to never work for anyone else, always for yourself. Was it crazy to go full time with my babysitting-vibes side-gig having never set foot in a design agency, except for the three in town that weren’t interested in hiring me? Yes! But I was raised to be spunky and my sparkling grit prevailed.
But 12 years was enough, I was ready to join a team. Desperately so. I went back to school and learned that hey, I actually kinda did teach myself pretty damn thorough curriculum. I took that confidence and excitement to put it into action and got a job as a Digital Manager at Alley Theatre in Houston Texas, a big dog of a regional theatre with a 30million operating budget and 80 years as a pillar US arts and culture.
I went on to enjoy 12 full-time years taking on anything and everything that sounded interesting or like something I could learn something from. I worked on word-of-mouth only, just me in my little 50s duplex taking client meetings at my kitchen table. I made great work that I am proud of and I made my clients happy. It was an excellent learning experience.
I treated this opportunity the same way I had before, and found myself paving new ground and having a blast doing it. I was able to accomplish a lot as I was promoted to Senior Brand Strategy Manager and then Associate Director of Marketing. After a creatively thrilling three years marketing outstanding theatre productions and events and driving creative strategy, my team raised the social media following over 600% in three years, making the Alley the third most followed regional theatre in the nation, and first outside of the tri-state area.
Now, I have my eyes peeled for the next thing I want to sink my teeth into. If you happen to know a decision maker who is looking for what I have to offer, connect me!
