Leadership & experience
I manage end-to-end creative direction, develop teams and stay accountable through delivery. My experience connects high-pressure production, national brand consistency and hands-on AI practice.
How I lead / From brief to delivery
My work at STEM NOLA / STEM Global Action connects national initiatives, weekly event campaigns and partner communications. I bring the creative judgment to shape the work and the production experience to carry it through.
Daily briefs / Stakeholder alignment
I manage end-to-end creative direction across brand, campaigns, publications, photography, film and digital content. I brief my graphic design intern daily and direct communications interns to event sites for photo and video coverage.
For the Innovation Center donor presentation, I redesigned a key slide while preserving the consultants’ message. Executive leadership and the consultant group approved the redesign.
Weekly critique / Practical coaching
I lead weekly content critiques with five interns and two full-time employees. Two focused professional-development sessions addressed event photography and Lightroom; I also teach Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator workflows to design interns.
When inconsistent lighting became a concern, I equipped team photographers with additional lighting and led hands-on coaching in shooting and editing.
Production budgets / Vendors / Quality
I manage creative and production budgets, including $5,000 for regular-event apparel and signage and a $30,000 sponsored-event production budget for STEM South Carolina STEM Fest. I coordinate specifications, vendors and delivery.
I provide brand-standard guidance to contract photographers and coordinate videographers and drone operators when larger events need additional coverage.
Leadership scope: My largest directly supervised team was 8–10 people. Weekly critiques with five interns and two full-time employees describe a review group; that count is separate from historical direct-report scope. Contract photographers, videographers and drone operators are coordinated by assignment.
Leadership in the work
I led two focused professional-development sessions alongside weekly critiques with five interns and two full-time employees. The first addressed the shoot; the second addressed the edit. These photographs make the coaching priorities visible.
Session 01 / Capture
Subject positioning, situational camera settings, exposure, composition and image selection. We worked through event conditions and how to keep the person and activity readable.
Session 02 / Lightroom
Lightroom use, techniques and adjustments: review the image, make purposeful corrections and develop a more consistent approach to event-photo editing.
The bright window dominates the exposure, leaving the participant’s face and the activity harder to read. The coaching question: where should the photographer position the subject, and which camera adjustments will preserve a readable face and activity?
The later image presents a more readable face, expression and student-built project, showing the kind of coverage the team was working toward. Review the relationship between the person, expression, project and background before selecting the final frame.
Photographs supplied as examples from different event shoots and lighting conditions, not a controlled exposure comparison. The first was captured by a communications intern; the second was captured after the critiques and professional development. My contribution here is coaching and creative direction.
Perspectives from former managers
Firsthand observations of my creative practice, mentorship and staff training.
Brand direction
“Kevin is the architect of our visual brand, translating our mission into compelling designs that inspire and engage.”Explore the brand system ↗
Developing people
“Whether mentoring interns or developing trainings to help staff improve their photo and video skills, Kevin was always happy to help others learn.”
Kevin has a real talent for taking an idea and turning it into something visually impressive. Having managed him during our time at STEM NOLA, I got to see that creativity firsthand.
From beautiful marketing materials and graphics to some truly incredible photography, Kevin has a great eye for design and visual storytelling. He has a particular knack for capturing exciting action shots and those “aha!” moments when a student discovers something new. Those are the moments that tell the best stories, and Kevin knows how to find them.
One thing I especially appreciated was his willingness to share his knowledge. Whether mentoring interns or developing trainings to help staff improve their photo and video skills, Kevin was always happy to help others learn.
His creativity, technical skills and eye for storytelling are what make him stand out, and perhaps more importantly make him an invaluable member of the team.
What travels across industries
Establish the message. Align the details. Carry the work through delivery. These are the habits I bring to a new brief, audience or industry.
Inspect artworkCarry one creative direction across promotion, event materials and coverage—keeping overlapping deliverables clear, coordinated and ready for their audience.
Explore the event campaign
Inspect artworkTranslate an organization’s identity into coordinated communications—from recurring event materials to a 28-page annual report for stakeholders.
See the brand system
Inspect artworkRefine dense information into a compelling presentation while preserving the message. Executive leadership and the funding consultants approved this redesign.
Review the design decisionExperience
STEM NOLA / STEM Global Action · New Orleans, LA
Previously Graphics and Media Arts Coordinator, August 2021–March 2022.
Lead partner- and funder-facing campaigns, donor presentations, annual reports and event communications; align executives, affiliate organizations, sponsors and production vendors across end-to-end creative direction and production.
Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office · Contract · New Orleans, LA
Podcast promotion, photography and video: six coordinated assets per episode, alongside institutional communications and stakeholder revisions.
Sir Speedy Printing & Marketing · New Orleans, LA
B2B client service from brief through delivery: direct-mail and promotional creative, print specifications, production-ready files, vendor coordination and recommendations on format, materials and production methods.
EP Aesthetics · Airborne X · Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights
Graphic Design · University of Louisiana at Monroe · 2015
Capabilities
B2B and institutional marketing: partner and sponsor campaigns, donor and executive presentations, annual reports, stakeholder alignment, team supervision and budget ownership.
Brand and campaign design, print specifications and file preparation, vendor coordination, editorial and environmental graphics, photography, cinematography, editing, motion and social content.
AI-assisted creative direction and editing with ChatGPT, Higgsfield and ChatCut; Adobe Creative Cloud finishing; Base44 workflow and product prototyping.
AI-assisted creative operations / Intern selection
I designed a graphic design intern selection workflow with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Base44, connecting university outreach, a shared brand toolkit, a two-part design exercise, submissions and interview booking. The finalist stage involved three candidates.
I contacted regional university graphic design professors for recommendations and organized the process around three finalists.
I used ChatGPT and Base44 to create landing pages and the selection workflow, directed AI agents to gather Dropbox brand content, and packaged assets, InDesign projects, design examples and context.
The invitation email connected two design briefs to their materials, submission requirements and the next interview step. Each finalist received the same two-part assignment.
I tested the materials before launch and continued checking live behavior. Creative evaluation and the hiring decision stayed with the Communications Director and me.
The actual evaluation brief
Finalists created a STEM Gulf Coast chemistry-event promotion and a Jefferson Parish STEM Fest social graphic. Both used a 1080 × 1350-pixel RGB format, with a JPG or PNG, PDF proof and editable source file.
Each designer explained the concept, intended audience, visual decisions, software, time spent, external assets and any generative-AI contribution. The next step was a 30-minute portfolio and exercise conversation.
Candidate work was requested for evaluation. The invitation made clear that public campaign use would require a separate permission and usage discussion.
Inside the supplied toolkit
Existing campaign reference supplied to finalists. The reviewed Dropbox packages contain InDesign and IDML sources, PDF references, linked imagery and partner assets. This is not a finalist’s submission.
An issue I caught and resolved
Implementation and delivery account supplied by Kevin Perrilliat. This example demonstrates live-workflow troubleshooting and human oversight; no time-saving metric is claimed.
This is how I apply AI to creative operations: define a useful process, give it the right source material, inspect what it produces and retain responsibility for decisions and execution.
The next chapter
Bring me a complex brief, a team to develop and a standard to protect. Let’s discuss the creative and production needs of your next role.
Open to U.S. relocation. Remote work with travel preferred.