David Corrente

Over the past few years I have successfully maintained my own freelance design/illustration business. This work ranges from individual project work up through long-term contract assignments. Here I highlight some of the more noteworthy assignments:
- Self Published Book
I have created a children's book, ABC A Rhyming Animal Alphabet Book, which I wrote, illustrated and published myself. It is currently available for sale on Amazon.com.
- Client: Hasbro
I am an approved vendor for design and illustration service for Hasbro. Recently I developed a Style Guide for Hasbro's Equestria Girls brand. I have also worked previously on the Tonka, Candyland, Chutes & Ladders, and My Little Pony brands.
- Client: Scholastic (via Aptara publishing services)
Provided illustrations for elementary grade level Weather and Ocean science books.
- Client: Pearson Education
Art direction, design and illustration for enVision AGA Math program. Collaborated with editorial and production departments to develop relevant supporting art for Common Core math studies. Organized and ran brainstorming meetings with all decision makers to determine are specs and requirements. Art directed off-site vendors in producing vector based and photoshop art elements. Also contributed illustrations and photoshop manipulating directly.
- Client: Pearson Education
Art direction and production design for Middle Grade Social Studies program.
- Client: Hinkler Publishing
Book Cover design and production for the following titles;
1001 Animal Stickers
1001 Activity Stickers
Giant Spot What!
You Can Draw!
Logo design for Disney Building Blocks

Kidsbooks is a children's promotional book publisher. I was responsible for all design and production functions, from initial product development through final pre-press. Along with being a hands-on Lead Designer I also managed a team of internal designers, while also working closely with Editorial, Sales and an overseas Production department. I was directly responsible for determining and maintaining budgets, establishing and enforcing job specifications and production procedures, mentoring and reviewing design staff employees.

Of note:
- I worked directly with the company owner to revive several under performing, backlist series with new designs and formats which went on to sell 10s of millions of copies.

- Working in collaboration with Sales, and Editorial I successfully re-branded the entire company, from redesigning the company logo to creating or redesigning nearly every product series either directly or via managing of a team of internal designers and/or external vendors.

- Prior to my arrival, Kidsbooks had no set production or archiving procedures which nearly resulted in the loss a number of valuable assets. I was able to restore these assets, then develop and implement procedures to ensure all jobs were properly documented, tracked and archived.

- Beyond the typical functions of design and production I took on many more responsibilities including IT duties, researching and installing new software, installing hard drives and memory, trouble-shooting computer issues, digital file and printer issues. I also replaced the existing DVD archiving system with a more efficient cloud based system.

- I took on the role of office manager which included typical office admin functions such as employee hiring and reviews, handled office budget/supplies and property management issues. This included coordinating 2 separate office moves.

Here I was contracted to provide art direction on the Reading PowerWorks® program. I worked in collaboration with editorial staff and outside vendors to produce a standards based leveled reading program consisting of a themed set of fiction and non-fiction books in the subjects of science, social studies and math. I provided graphic design of cover layouts and interior page layouts. In collaboration with editorial, I also art directed off site illustrators and designers in the production of dozens of leveled reading books.

Contract position. The company I was previously contracted with (Publicom) shut down before completion of the project in progress. Riverdeep, the client who owned the Reader Rabbit project, contracted with me directly to complete the project.

In collaboration with the Director of Art and Design I art directed a team of 11 contract illustrators and 4 in-house production designers on the Reader Rabbit® educational workbooks series for Learning Company Books™. We developed (3) 320 page educational workbooks for Pre-K, Kindergarten, and 1st Grade levels in the subject areas of Alphabet, Colors, Shapes, Phonics and other standards based exercises. I ran brainstorming sessions, provided art direction and illustrations.

Supervised staff of 8 graphic artists assigning workloads, mentoring, conducting performance reviews, and critiquing work quality. This was a hands on design role as well, designing and producing book covers and interior page layouts, primarily for college level text books. I was responsible for making sure quality standards, job specifications, and project deadlines are met. I also handled all high end image scanning on a Heidelberg drum scanner.

Developed work procedures and processes to produce a more efficient work flow including an electronic work order form which was linked to a job status database to provide timely job status updates for all inter-company departments.

Organized an art library and archiving system in order to manage Digital Assets.

Proven effective communication within my department, between inter-company departments, with
outside vendors as well as with clients directly.