Lauren Castro

As an Art Director at Rhyme & Reason Design, I work hand-in-hand with a talented team of creative marketing professionals to strategize, design, and develop award-winning work for our various clients. We combine creative ideas (rhyme) with smart design (reason) to successfully launch websites, rebrand organizations and craft dynamic content for communications both online and off.

Brand Fever activates brands and turns them on. By feverishly delivering marketing strategies grounded in intelligence and executed with creative excellence, we help companies, products and services define their purpose and tell meaningful stories, internally & externally, about who they are and why they matter.

Responsibilities included: Ability to create highly conceptual visual solutions, have excellent interpersonal, communication, and presentation skills. Concept development, design, production and project management of visual marketing initiatives in all mediums: print, interactive and environment.

frank is a gathering for social change communicators. It’s a place to connect with others, define the field and learn how to win on the issues we all work to overcome.

As co-Art Director for frank, my responsibilities have included developing the event’s visual identity system via the official program, unique conference invitations, way finding, social media + web graphics, and various promotional materials including “swag” items.

Digital Brands is a fast-growing developer of high-traffic websites in competitive online verticals. Their focus is to build the next generation of pro-consumer sites, providing users with expert reviews, engaging content and distinctive user experiences.

As graphic designer, I assisted in the creation of various websites via research, strategic planning, and design of custom layouts, interfaces, and graphics. I collaborated with website front-end & development teams to bring digital designs into completion, creating elements such as logo marks, favicons, social media skins, avatars, banner ads, and wireframe mockups for various sites both before and after their launch.

My designs for Digital Brands’ website BadCredit.Org have been featured on Yahoo! Finance, and the website has seen a 600% growth since launch, with 188,000 visitors monthly (and growing).

Adwerks is the University of Florida’s full service, student-run advertising agency which does non-profit work for real world clients. It is a subsection of one of the nation’s most productive college chapters of the American Advertising Federation, Ad Society.

Each Adwerks team is led by 2 Directors (Account and Creative) and made up of 5 Team Members (Media Planner, Account Executive, Copywriter, Graphic Designer, Art Director).

As Creative Director, I worked alongside my Account Director to oversee two Adwerks teams— Project Gainesville and Gainesville Rock Gym.

In this position, I was leader of the creative department of our agency, working hand-in-hand with a team of designers, media planners, copywriters, and account executives to create website layouts, packaging designs, labeling, and print materials for local clients. Our team developed design ideas and I assisted them in bringing the ideas into execution, acting as both a collaborator and instructor to team— giving ideas/feedback and creating designs to meet the client’s needs.

Adwerks is the University of Florida’s full service, student-run advertising agency which does non-profit work for real world clients. It is a subsection of one of the nation’s most productive college chapters of the American Advertising Federation, Ad Society.

Adwerks services are completely free. This is a chance for students to gain real work experience as up-and-coming advertising professionals. Clients may establish a budget as low or as high as they like, and their Adwerks team will work within that budget to create tangible materials that will produce results.

Each Adwerks team is led by 2 Directors (Account and Creative) and made up of 5 Team Members (Media Planner, Account Executive, Copywriter, Graphic Designer, Art Director).

Past projects include: The Truffle Cake Co. and Gainesville Fashion Week