About

Regina Rexrode

Professional

One of my first experiences with graphic design was when I attended Ball State University while pursuing my Bachelors Degree in Business Office Administration in the late 90’s. The class I took was brand new to the department, called “Reprographics.” The professor didn’t know anymore about what an Apple computer was, layout, fonts, colors, etc. than anyone who signed up in the class.  BSU invested in only a handful of  Macintosh computers. This professor was the lucky one that had to teach the first class. The class had so much fun learning together a new operating system using the Apple, graphic design in general, and PageMaker and QuarkXpress. After I made my first invitation to a party, I was hooked. I loved designing and page layout.

After graduation, I joined a small magazine publisher and took them from producing the magazine by hand to all digital within the first year by convincing them to buy an Apple and QuarkXpress. It was a big accomplishment for myself and the publisher.

A new opportunity arose and I accepted a page layout position at Macmillan Publishing (now known as Pearson). After a year or so, I advanced to their Production Training Department as a Layout trainer and was responsible for training all new hires regarding the production department and the ins and outs of how to layout books the “Macmillan” way. In addition, my teammates and I would all cross-train one another on proofreading skills and indexing skills.

After several years at Macmillan and a few other local print shops as their graphic designer, I quit to stay at home with my new son and became a freelance graphic designer. I have been offering my graphic design and page layout skills for over 20 years and since both of our children have now graduated and are living on their own, I have been able to open up and learn and grow my business in different types of digital content. 

Professional Skills

Soft Skills

Volunteer Work and Projects

Personal

My husband John and I were married in 1994 and have raised two wonderful children. Being a wife and mother is the best, but challenging when you are trying to run your own business. Not only does worrying about our kids and family life keep me up at night, but also my clients and their problems. However, I know I’m doing what I love as a profession because there are many days that I wake up  thinking about a problem or a new design that I was actually dreaming about. I feel extremely blessed that I am surrounded by a supporting family and many of my clients have become like family too.  

Along with working in and on my business to grow my client base, my husband and I enjoy traveling and visiting with friends and family. We like to try new restaurants and breweries. 

That being said, I do focus on our health. We have read and watched lots of documentaries about Plant-Based eating to reduce the risk of chronic diseases. We are not entirely plant-based (as mentioned that we like to go out to eat and go to breweries), but here at home I love that I have learned how to cook wonderful plant-based dishes.

Along with working and cooking, I also volunteer my time and talent with our church community. One way I do that is by assisting with our St. Vincent dePaul Center, which provides food and clothing for the needy. Many of my technology skills help benefit them as I designed and manage their client database system. Many of the volunteers I work with there are in their retirement years and it’s good to have me around to help them with their tech issues.

I’m not sure when my  “retirement” may happen, because I love what I do, and as a freelancer, I am able to work from anywhere. But it seems like yesterday that our children were small and my freelance career was just starting. 

Since time does go by fast, I am one for capturing memories and looking at old pictures and videos. Many of you may remember the days when you would lug around large camcorders on your shoulder, buy film and a nice camera, get the pictures developed, weed through the bad ones (that you paid for) and place the rest in a photo album with the intent that you’ll alway remember these moments in time. I also remember holiday (especially Christmas) when it was very common to just set the camcorder up on a tripod and let it roll to capture the whole morning. Secretly, we all wanted to get that one clip to send in to “America’s Funniest Home Videos.”

Well, chances are, if you are anything like me, these have been stored somewhere, pushed around, collecting dust in basements or attics, and every now and then we get that nostalgic feeling and we look at a few old memories. 

I started working on my own collection and transferring to digital format and getting organized so that my children will have them in a digital format and organizing them on an external hard drive for them to have later in their lives. Having the family history from both sides of the family, as well as, their own childhood memories. I did dabble in that for a while as a side hustle, but there was a lot of time invested in doing that for others. I’ll leave that to the companies where that is their business.

I always look forward to meeting new people and helping with projects, either as a volunteer or as being hired. I put for my best effort in what is needed.

Thank you,

 

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“Design is as much a matter of finding problems as it is solving them.” - Bryan Lawson