Alice Packard's resume

Senior Manager, Design Systems at Marriott

Co-owner of Figma assets and design-documentation alongside Haleigh Houde. Our consumers are using this system to build internal products used by Marriott associates.

Tools: Figma, Outlook, Teams, Jira, Storybook, Confluence

Senior Design Operations Associate at Gartner

Supported a team of 12 product designers, 4 design managers, and 6 UX researchers. I led rituals and workshops, crafted internal workflows and mini-apps to support them, oversaw onboarding to the UX team, and owned the designers' Figma component library ecosystem.

Tools: Figma, Coda, Outlook, Slack, Google Slides, Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Sheets, Adobe InDesign, Dovetail, UserTesting, Retrium, Miro, Teams, Storybook

• Collaborated closely with a lead engineer to build and maintain the business’s first multi-brand design system. I was responsible for the Figma library ecosystem that supported 4 products (each with unique visual design languages). See portfolio project.
• Deprecated two-dozen legacy components in old libraries that are now handled by the new multi-brand library.
• Built a custom “app” (using Coda) for tracking changes at the component level, housing design documentation, dashboards displaying individuals’ contribution stats and richer historical data about each component library’s history for librarians and consumers. See portfolio project.
• Established a peer-review process for quality checking components before publishing, fostering a culture of excellence and collaboration between product designers and our DS team.
• Regularly announced new elements and significant updates via engaging, tastefully emoji-rich summaries in Slack, sometimes with accompanying video demos.
• Built a fully custom user experience research repository using Coda. This repo contained all of the UXR team’s findings and recommendations across every study. Designers, product folks, and engineers could filter across this data set to inform OKRs and align on a shared UX vision. See portfolio project.
• Revamped our team onboarding checklist to be faster and easier for hiring managers to personalize to the new teammate's role, seniority level, location, contract type, and what areas of the product they'd be working on. See portfolio project.
• Translated a 50+ page InDesign research findings deck template file into a set of Figma components and template file. This tool switch drastically cut down on researchers’ peer review time.

Adjunct Professor for "Visual Communication Design" (GDES-200) at American University

Led a class of 15 students, two-thirds majoring or minoring in graphic design, and half with zero experience using Adobe software. 

Tools: Canvas, Miro, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Outlook, Zoom, Youtube

• Recorded high-quality, in-depth video demos covering Illustrator and Photoshop basics for asynchronous consumption via youtube. These were supplemented with more targeted in-class live demos.
• Taught foundational concepts via engaging lectures that built upon each other: gestalt principles, color theory, hierarchy, data visualization, and typography fundamentals.
• Taught Adobe software features through live, follow-along demos as well as follow-up video recordings hosted on youtube for asynchronous reference.
• Emphasized good critique etiquette through direct, hands-on experience with every assignment. Taught strategies for pointing out flaws and weak areas without making it about the designer. Reminded them that critique is about coming together to help elevate work, not a compliment party, and not a roast.

Product Design Prototyper at FiscalNote

Constructed interactive prototypes for the UX Research team to support their qualitative research (eg feature and product desirability testing). Communicated research findings with the business and collaborated with designers to iterate and refine the most promising ideas.

Tools: Figma, Axure, Coda, Dovetail, Adobe Illustrator, Procreate, Google Slides, Adobe InDesign, Slack, Google Meet

• Co-constructed a massive Figma prototype (dozens of unique pages) for testing a risky idea to refactor the entire UI and experience of the business’ flagship product. Built an “open world” experience for unscripted exploring, and 2 guided flows to demo interactions, new functionality, and key user-flows. This was used in desirability testing with the UX research team and for demo-ing to stakeholders (including the C-suite executives).
• Prototyped and facilitated user research sessions on a new “social media monitoring” feature (a highly requested feature from customers). Collaborated with UX Researchers to analyze the data, and Data Scientists to ensure the vision could be delivered.
• Crafted a user research operations ecosystem that coupled day-to-day task management with historical records of our work so we could better forecast and scope out future initiatives (e.g. tracking who we met with, recruitment costs, how much work went into initiatives, etc.)
• Collaborated with user researchers to create a system of codes in Dovetail used to qualitatively analyze and then compare data across research initiatives, products, and user personas. This code system aided our team in answering highly specific questions anyone in the business had about our customers on the fly.

Designer at Brunch Digital

One of two designers at a 7-person studio. Developed brand identities and supporting collateral (eg website mockups, marketing graphics, campaign assets, and merchandise)

Tools: Sketch, Axure, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign, Asana, Wordpress, Squarespace, Slack, Zoom

• Developed a variety of brand assets and creative collateral for: Pride Fund to End Gun Violence (logo system), Red Bear Brewing Company (pride month merchandise), Graham Capital Wealth Management (website design), and Duplex Diner (print menu).
• Obtained a secret clearance to design internal experiences for the United States Postal Service (USPS) and the Department of Defense (DoD). This was sub-contract work via AccentureFederal.
• Spearheaded an effort to improve design and development collaboration by standardizing the way Sketch files were organized. Collaborated closely with both our design and development teams to identify pain points in our legacy process and account for them in our new process.
• Co-led a summer internship program. Wrote the on-boarding handbook, and designed the structure of the program. Helped our design intern define her goals and her long-term summer project, held check-in meetings with her on her progress, and led software training sessions for the entire intern cohort.

Busser and backwaiter at 2Amys

I loved this job. I am lucky to have had such a positive experience in a service role (didn't need The Bear to know how rough restaurant work can be). 2Amy's is where I learned how to be a team player.

Fired tickets, ordered and ran drinks from the bar to servers' tables, bussed and set tables, re-stocked pizza boxes for the kitchen, sat customers and made small talk while distributing water glasses, occasionally answered questions about the menu ("my favorite appetizers are...", or "the fava bean crostini will only be around for another week, don't miss it"), communicated 86'd items to servers who were out of ear-shot of the kitchen, occasionally hosted (I got to welcome Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her security detail once, which is my one and only DC brag), made espresso drinks (I was not great at this), mopped bathrooms, cleaned toilets, untangled apron strings, folded pizza boxes, re-filled salt shakers and pepper grinders, re-stocked fridges and wine displays.

Design Tokens and UI Component Architecture led by Nathan Curtis via IntoDesignSystems' workshop program

Design System Planning and Process led by Nathan Curtis via IntoDesignSystems' workshop program

Getting started with ProductBoard via ProductBoard's in-house training program, "ProductBoard Academy"

Design System Bootcamp taught by Molly Hellmuth via Maven

Coda Doctorate via Coda's in-house training program, "Earn your Doctorate"

Check out my capstone project: a Figma library buddy doc. It helps teams capture a richer publication history of their library files. I also have a portfolio piece about using this doc IRL.

Figma

My fav. If you somehow missed it, I keep a blog about Figma components!

Coda

I've built interactive documentation, task and project trackers, retro docs that feel like web-apps, interactive data repositories, status-update formatters, dashboards, and a personal grocery list app optimized for my local stores' layouts.

Webflow

This very website is built on Webflow!

Kit

As a supplement to my blog, I run a newsletter so I can better connect with my readers.

Adobe Creative Suite

InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop (which is where it all began. And yes, it was a bootleg copy... I started playing with v7.0 around 2008). 2013 is when I began using more of the suite in an academic (rather than hobbyist) setting.

BA in Graphic Design from American University

AU's graphic design program featured a web & digital interaction track, and a print media track. I was interested in both, but ultimately specialized in web. My all-time favorite course was a film photography class where I learned to shoot 35mm, process my film, and print in the dark room.