Why should you hire McKenna Shuster?
Her experience proves the saying, "variety is the spice of life."
McKenna has worked in a myriad of design fields, making her extremely adaptable and able to hit the ground running, no matter what your vision is.
AI Tech Start-Ups
Between her time at Simplr and Alyce, McKenna learned how to collaborate efficiently with engineers, marketers, sales teams, c-suite, and product teams. Being a part of the AI tech space required the the ability to be nimble, a keen understanding of overall business goals, and strategically contributing to content with the power of visual language.
Design Agencies
McKenna began her career at an agency and credits most of her design fundamentals to that experience. Understanding the rules of design allows her to break them in a way that delights her clients. Beyond honing her design skills, she learned how to communicate effectively with clients, commanding the room in presentation settings and making clients feel comfortable and heard.
Freelance
Freelance taught McKenna the most about the designer that she is and that she wants to be. It forced her to understand the business side of creative work. McKenna is highly skilled in creating scope documentation, establishing contracts, and formulating appropriate timelines for client success.
She's a workhorse.
McKenna isn't afraid to get her hands dirty to get sh!t done. While respectful of her boundaries, she understands and possesses the kind of work ethic it takes to make truly quality design.
Designed + Built a Website in 2 Months... During a Pandemic
At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, McKenna joined the team at Alyce and was the content designer, web designer, site architect, site builder (with a WYSIWYG), and post-launch tester of their revamped website. She worked tirelessly in this new role to set up her team for success in a tumultuous time.
Made a Living on the Freelance Grind
After suffering the all too common layoff at the beginning of the pandemic, McKenna worked tirelessly to build her client base and made a sustainable living purley off of freelance work. As you can imagine, this was an uphill battle, but she turned those lemons into lemonade, and eventually, broke into a full-time position in the tech space.
Adapted to Explosive Growth
During McKenna's first 18 months at Simplr, the company almost tripled in size, which often meant triple the work. She seamlessly transitioned from the contracted designer of a small company into the lead creative of a burgeoning mid-sized company with grace and fortitude.
What sets McKenna apart is not only her design skills but also her professionalism and work ethic. She is a reliable team player who meets deadlines, communicates effectively, and goes above and beyond for those on her team and outside.
Aisha Robinson
DIRECTOR OF DEMAND GENERATION @ SIMPLR
She's a learn-it-all, not a know-it-all.
McKenna is constantly looking to up her game. Whether she's taking challenging courses or attending world-renowned conferences, she knows the value of continued education and how that impacts your business.
Dribbble Product Design Certification
During her time at Simplr, McKenna used her free time to enhance her product design skills so that she could be a more well-rounded creative. She took a 4-month long design course that culminated in a capstone project and a certification of completion.
Marketing + Design Conferences
McKenna sharpens her toolbox constantly by attending world-class conferences and events. She's attended HubSpot's Inbound in Boston, Brand New's First Round in Denver, and Northeastern University's annual Scout Studio conference in Boston. She's constantly on the lookout for local design workshops and experiences she can have within the community.
Her GSD attitude is infectious but her humble demeanor would lead you to believe everything was a breeze. I am also impressed with how much she is able to learn and pick up things in quick succession and be able to run with things on her own without much guidance.
Phi Phi Ngo
PRODUCT DESIGNER @ ALYCE
She believes that process makes perfect.
In all of her roles, McKenna has implemented process change that benefits the company's bottom line.
Revamping a 30+ Year Old Agency's Web Process
When McKenna began her role at EBD, the web design process was not as current as it could be. Upon her arrival, she audited and revamped the entire web process from tip to tail, implementing industry standard tools like Figma, helping draft new scope documentation for clients and development partners, emphasizing responsive design frameworks, delegating SEO, and ultimately, speeding up our website process by over 50%.
Project Management Tool Implementation
During her time at Simplr, McKenna and her coworkers turned over the company's marketing workflow management system from a porley organized Trello board to a fully functioning, detail oriented Asana ecosystem. This sped up workflow substantially and cut down on confusion. Beyond Simplr, she has literacy in Notion and other project management tools.
A New Approach to Client Presentations
After diagnosing some road blocks in client presentations at EBD, McKenna proposed a new way of presenting to clients that enhanced client understanding and diminished confusion. Among her suggestions were a client audit based on a standardized adjective exercise, mood boards to establish look and feel, and breaking out brand presentations into more bite-sized elements. This approach worked to avoid overwhelming the client and provide industry knowledge along the way.
Not only is she a phenomenal creative talent, but she is one of the most organized and detail-oriented designers I have worked with as a project manager.
Gia Marando
DIRECTOR OF DEMAND GENERATION @ SIMPLR
Her skillset makes her the ultimate one-stop-shop.
McKenna doesn't think generalist is a dirty word. She relishes the ability to surprise and delight her coworkers and clients with the ability to go beyond her specialty.
Strong Visual Design Foundation
McKenna has a strong interest in art and a minor in art history which help informs her design practice and ethos. She considers herself first and foremost a visual designer and loves branding, but has branched out throughout the years to bring that knowledge and attention to aesthetics to fields like product design, marketing design, and more.
Interaction Design Practicality
McKenna chose to specialize in Interaction Design during her time in school. This means that her design fundamentals were based around not only how something looks, but ultimately, how it functions. With this form follows function approach, her work is not only something pretty to look at, it's an example of how practicality and beauty can live in harmony.
Fluent in B2B Marketing
During her time at Simplr, McKenna worked within the marketing team, learning the ins and outs of how to create content that engages the B2B space. Collaborating with her teammates in their respective expertises in product marketing, events marketing, content marketing, marketing analysis, and public relations offered a new lens for McKenna to see design with.
McKenna is an absolute powerhouse of a designer. Having had the pleasure of working with her both in school and professionally, I can say wholeheartedly that she is one of the most talented designers of her age. Not only is she highly adaptable, knowledgable and hardworking, but she's equally crafty, easygoing and just an all-around joy of a person to work with.
Rachael Bentley
DESIGNER @ ALYCE
She's got a strong foundation in UX/UI design.
McKenna knows how important it is for websites and products to be accessible. It's more than just following guidelines, it's creating a space where acquiring knowledge is equitable for all.
WCAG Compliance
During her time at EBD, McKenna bolstered the importance of WCAG compliance and raised the standard of compliant output made by the company. She is excellent at helping clients understand the ins and outs of compliance and what that means for their overall brand.
Understanding of HTML + CSS
McKenna has worked with developers in every job she has held and loves combining the expression of design with the logic of development. While she is not a developer, she understands the fundamentals of HTML + CSS so that she is able to design beautifully responsive websites and collaborate with developers seamlessly.
Wordpress Expert
McKenna is an expert at using WordPress and was the main website editor at Simplr. She often stood up pages, blogs, and other content with a custom template designed by an external developer. She is also familiar with many WYSIWYG plugins and templates including but not limited to Divi, Beaver Builder, and Semplice.
She's passionate about teaching others.
Whether she's in a professional leadership position or she's just casually providing expertise, McKenna wants to emulate the very best of leadership she's had in the past-- and improve upon it tenfold.
Casual Mentorship
McKenna finds herself being contacted by young designers frequently. She has mentored a young designer that recently graduated from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, a recent product design graduate from Canada, and a UX designer looking to break into product design in Dallas. She has a very large network of alumni and current designers from Northeastern University's on-campus design studio, Scout, and offers one-on-one mentorship to any and all members as needed.
Professional Mentorship
McKenna has professionally mentored in many of her roles. During her time at Sametz Blackstone, she helped mentor the design intern under the guidance of the Art Director. At Simplr, she helped the community marketing manager hone her design skills through Canva. Finally, at EBD, she directly mentored an intern with the help of her peers and the art director, and helps manage and mentor the Junior Designer on staff.
Teaching Figma
During McKenna's time at EBD, she worked on getting the entire design team up to speed on the industry standard web design tool, Figma. She created a timeline in which she dispersed Figma learning resources, checked in on their progress, and did live demonstrations to round out their skillsets.
[McKenna's] guidance, direction, and overall mentorship helped me grow as a designer immensely. She was always a positive influence on the work environment and on my own work directly, no matter the type of project that happened to be going on. I would highly recommend McKenna as a skilled, structured, and highly creative designer with a passion for helping teams to push beyond their limits. It was truly a privilege to have gotten to know McKenna as a person and to have my work as a designer reach new heights thanks to her guidance and support.
Dale Pittman
INTERN @ ELLEN BRUSS DESIGN
She knows how to manage Millenials and Gen-Z.
Being right on the cusp of both, McKenna is able to connect with and provide unique management to her team that breaks the mold of traditional leadership.
Analysis of Strengths and Weaknesses
McKenna is always looking to help her team improve. During all points of their professional relationship, McKenna will hone in on their key strengths and weaknesses, asking questions and actively listening. Have a fear of client presentations? She will work on it with you together and have you audit some meetings to get you comfortable to present. Struggling to understand a new tool? She will guide you and offer resources to better help you.
Art Direction, Not Dictatorship
McKenna knows there is more than one way to achieve success. Especially in a field as subjective as design-- as long as a colleague can back up their ideas with strategic thinking and quality delivery, she is willing to back them up. Just because it isn't exactly what she would do, doesn't mean it's wrong!
Imbuing Confidence
As a leader, McKenna believe that it is critical to celebrate her coworkers and champion their successes. She understands the value of confidence building and how it shaped her own career, so she eagerly looks to do the same for others.
Getting On Your Level
McKenna approaches leadership on an even playing field. In the past, her most effective mentors and managers treated her with the same amount of respect they would their own superiors. Every player brings a different expertise to the game, and she is always willing to listen and learn from her fellow coworkers, no matter what the org chart looks like.
Credit Where Credit is Due
The old saying, "there is no 'I' in team is a mantra for McKenna." Being recognized for your contribution to success is a key method of showing appreciation and keeping your employees feeling valued and seen.
She meets clients where they are.
McKenna is passionate about democratizing good design. She knows how to optimize tools and deliverables for client success in the long term.
Non-Traditional Design Tools
McKenna knows that if it's not sustainable, it won't last. She tailors the design experience and deliverables to meet folks where they are. Whether it's pixel perfect templates in Canva or expressive yet informative Brand Guidelines in Figma, McKenna always makes sure to set up her partners for success in the long term.
Sliding-Scale Offerings
McKenna believes that good design should be accessible for everyone. When she takes on freelance projects, she uses an internal sliding-scale based on the company, their size, and the space they are in.
Transparent, But Won't Ghost You
McKenna knows that the only surprises in a client relationship should be delightful. That's why she takes extreme care in writing thoughtful creative briefs, transparent scopes, and documents all what-if scenarios at the beginning of client relationships.
"I can't say enough good things about McKenna. McKenna and her team provided our startup Mass Hike with a fully customized design portfolio as we sought to develop our brand. No one on our team had design experience, and McKenna helped guide us all the way. She led team exercises to help us brainstorm branding ideas, and just a few weeks later we had a GORGEOUS website, logo, and design book. Her kindness and ability to communicate with clients is outmatched only by her brilliance in graphic design. I would recommend her to anyone without reservation!"
Malcolm Matheson
FOUNDER @ MASS HIKE
She's well versed in the challenges and rewards of global work.
McKenna has had the opportunity to work with creative professionals from all over the globe, making her a more flexible and empathetic designer.
A Year on Island Time
During her time at Simplr, McKenna relocated to the island of Oahu for a year. She worked with her coworkers to not only overcome, but conquer the 7-hour time difference. When they woke up , their inboxes were filled with their design requests from the previous day.
Poland, Brazil, and Beyond
McKenna has had the sincere pleasure of working with folks from all over the world, learning how to manage some pretty large time differences all the while. At Simplr, McKenna art directed an incredible illustrator from Poland and they learned how to seamlessly communicate to create beautiful marketing collateral together.
She's a steward of culture, no matter where she goes.
McKenna knows that culture is how you feel on Sunday nights before the week starts. She strives to make every work environment one of genuine care and camaraderie.
Remote Office Culture
It can be hard to foster culture when employees are spread so far apart. McKenna worked to build culture during her time working remotely at Simplr by creating Slack channels to celebrate personal wins (#victory), participating in weekly get-to-know-you meetings with coworkers on others teams, and crocheting "team uniform" hats in our company's brand color.
In-Office Culture
McKenna's been known to incorporate daily rituals for everyone to keep things fresh during the week. This could include unexpected morning Brand New website perusals with the team, weekend ice-breakers, goofy team-building activities like hand painted turkeys for Thanksgiving, and fresh baked cookies that make the team feel cared for.
She has an abundance of positive energy, intrinsic motivation to "go beyond,"and her cat appearances on Zoom meetings always bring smiles to the team.
Daniel Rodriguez
CMO @ Simplr
After graduating from Northeastern University in 2018 🎓, McKenna cut her teeth at Sametz Blackstone, a small, 40+ year strong studio in 🦞 Boston. She then moved on to the tech space, spending her pandemic years learning the ins and outs of cutting edge technology 💻 and working with some extremely talented folks along the way. In 2023 she landed at Ellen Bruss Design, where she helps lead the design team and owns all web production 🫡 . When she's not in the studio, you can find McKenna hitting new PRs on leg press 🏋️♀️, watching Seinfeld re-runs 📺, and crocheting 🧶 while her cat tries to attack the string 😻.
Services
Art Direction
Brand Identity
Web Design
Packaging Design
Print Design
Product Design
Marketing Design
Photo Editing
Creative Consulting
Select Clients
Harvard Medical School
MassArt
Corum Real Estate Group
Hammond's Candies
MIT
MCA Denver
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Olin College of Engineering
Past Lives
Sametz Blackstone Associates
Designer, 2018-2020
Alyce
Web Designer, 2020
Simplr, An Asurion Company
Creative Lead, 2020-2023
Ellen Bruss Design
Senior Designer + Web Strategist, 2023-Present
Education
Northeastern University
2014-2018
BFA Interaction Design
Minor in Art History
Dribbble Product Design
2023
Certificate of Completion
Contact & Information
This website was designed and built by McKenna Shuster in 2024. It uses Scotch, designed by Neil Summerour from Positype and Roc Grotesk, designed by Nikola Kostić and Zoran Kostić from Kostic Type Foundry.
