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It all started with anthropomorphic pigs... My first job out of school was doing graphics for imprinted sportswear. The business had a license for the Washington Redskins who were using “The Hogs” as a promotional driver that year. The Redskins had a Super Bowl year, I designed and produced a ton of cartoon football pigs and sold a ton of t-shirts. After the football season, I talked my employer into letting me pitch a line to the locally popular 17th Street Surf Shop. The line sold very well and caught the attention of larger national sportswear lines. I spent the next couple of years with a large manufacturer designing licensed sportswear lines. I started with surf and skate brands like Vans and Instinct, and then expanded to bigger athletic sportswear companies such as Reebok, Adidas, Puma and high-profile consumer lines for Calvin Klein, Christian Dior and Armani. I was involved in almost all aspects of developing the products from customer research, brand identity, demographic strategy, graphic design, development, promotion and marketing, and won national awards for introducing innovative production techniques. I joined a close friend becoming the second person at a start-up company called DKGdesign. Our initial focus was sportswear and we developed product lines for Britches of Georgetowne and STX Lacrosse then expanded into interactive multimedia and traditional print design. We were successful and were setting sales records for our clients, when a contact called us do some work for a company with a venture on this new thing called “The Internet”. That was how I started my relationship with AOL, developing the identity for software and print product lines along with interactive marketing media and promotional sites. After seven years at DKG managing, developing and producing sportswear, multimedia, print and online design, inspired by the potential of the internet, I decided to completely focus on the online medium. I left DKG and took a position working for the local content division of AOL, DigitalCity. We completely redesigned DigitalCity to be easier to use with more depth and relevancy. DigitalCity won a PC Magazine award for best in class and I moved to AOL’s prestigious client and core product team. My first project as part of that team was to breathe life into a handful of stale products: AOL Search, Parental Controls, Instant Messaging and You’ve Got Pictures (AOL’s digital imaging suite). I collaborated with a large and diverse set of stakeholders to develop goals, refine the user interface, increase the performance and enhance the benefit and relevance for the user. Search increased from $85 million to more than $230 million in revenue. Parental Controls saw its feature set expanded, user interface simplified and was a core component of the national advertising campaign. You’ve Got Pictures was given a unified graphical user interface and saw its usage increase by three times over previous versions. We partnered to integrate rich media from Viewpoint and Macromedia to take AOL’s plain Instant Messenger product and enrich it with thousands of buddy icons, wall papers, sounds and even 3D “SuperBuddies” that react to what you type, and made AOL’s Instant Messenger one of the member’s most beloved products. My team grew, built by mentoring and hiring, and I was given more products to drive towards success, including AOL.COM, AOL’s Community Product line and the AOL Welcome screen that is not only the single most viewed page on the entire Internet at that time, but also the most viewed property in any media. I stayed through the launch of AOL 9.0 Optimized, which had the highest customer satisfaction scores of any release, and that’s when EarthLink called. EarthLink's vision and energy is incredibly appealing. A smaller subscriber base, but an ambitious business plan with product initiatives not only in traditional client and web applications, but entries into exciting new areas like municipal Wi-Fi connectivity, voice over IP, cutting edge communication tools, small device and next generation internet applications, in addition to EarthLink’s strong presence in the access and security space. All of this made for an offer I couldn’t refuse. EarthLink brought me on to help transform the company from just an ISP to a company the develops applications. I refined and repositioned the existing design department to be more collaborative and to participate as a strategic partner. I brought in expertise in Flash and Web 2.0 to enhance the existing talent and overhauled the existing processes and documentation. I participated in strategic initiatives tasked with making EarthLink a total communications provider and evangelized mature design techniques throughout the company. I rebuilt one usability lab and built another from scratch to connect with our customers and learn how to serve them better. These efforts have resulted in EarthLink’s dial brand, PeoplePC, being named JDPowers number one in customer satisfaction. We increased revenue per user within the EarthLink subscriber base, and launched innovative products in the communication and security categories. EarthLink may have its challenges in the future, but it does have the advantage of a top notch design department. And to think it all started with anthropomorphic pigs... Best Regards, |
Mickey Rossi OBJECTIVE
WORK HISTORY America Online, Inc DKGdesign Coming Attractions Shirt Xplosion
EDUCATION |
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