meet Nicki

Nicki has been a designer and developer professionally for over 12 years, with the education and experience to back it up. In her time working at startup companies, freelancing, and over seven years working as a Creative Director at a web design and development agency, she has designed, developed, and overseen the process of hundreds of website and marketing projects. If you're looking to freshen up your online presence, start from scratch, update your brand, or even just get some advice about how to proceed, Nicki is your girl.

about

Experience

Creative Director @ Yelling Mule

2016 – present

As Creative Director at Yelling Mule, a web design, development, and digital marketing agency in Boston, Nicki oversees a team of designers and developers, manages projects, and is involved in every step from discovery through project launches. Nicki’s role includes managing and creating schedules, design work, development work, client communication, critical review of design and development, and maintenance relationships with existing clients. She has worked with Yelling Mule to design, build, and launch hundreds of websites.

 

Freelancer @ Nicki Haylon Creative

2012 – present

Nicki Haylon Creative kicked off as a side project in 2012 and has had steady clients for the past 10+ years. During that time, Nicki has sometimes balanced freelancing with full-time employment, but has also relied on it as a solo career for multiple years at a time. Nicki has worked independently with dozens of clients on everything from graphic design and logo creation to designing, developing, and launching entire websites.

 

Front-End Developer @ Smart Destinations

2015-2016

Smart Destinations is the premier provider of unlimited admission sightseeing passes in 9 major North American travel destinations from Oahu to New York City. Smart Destinations’ Go City Cards and Explorer Passes offer pre-paid access to over 425 museums, attractions, and tours for one low fixed price. Nicki worked in their Boston office as a front-end developer, largely working with her small team and also the marketing team on site improvements, landing pages, and other internal projects. She ran user testing campaigns and implemented fixes and changes to the user experience of the site.

 

Designer & Developer @ ProlificWorks (formerly Libboo)

2012 – 2015

At ProlificWorks (formerly known as Libboo), Nicki was responsible for ensuring that products, outgoing marketing and communications efforts, and content produced by the Libboo brand were consistent with and maintain the brand’s standards of quality. She was also responsible for creating and maintaining product vision, and working with the team to implement product strategy that enhanced and reinforced that vision. Nicki led the production of creative content such as marketing collateral, advertisements, user interface and user experience design, and front-end development. She also oversaw the curation of all content, such as books, that become a part of or were promoted by Libboo’s products, and was responsible for maintaining brand integrity within outgoing communications to customers and users.

Education

Startup Institute Boston

Marketing & Design,  Summer 2012

Startup Institute worked with professionals, career changers, and dynamic individuals to equip them with the skills needed to have an immediate impact on the startup company they join. Their primary objective was to align passion with profession, and usher students into a life they love.

Startup Institute was a full-time, immersive, eight-week experience that will catapult participants into their city’s technology ecosystem in the areas of web development, product & design, technical marketing, or sales & business development.

Though Startup Institute as a program no longer exists, Nicki attended the program as part of its initial cohort in 2012, studying marketing, design, and networking specifically as they relate to working with startup and small companies.

 

Roger Williams University

Creative Writing & Graphic Design, 2008-2012

At RWU, Nicki double majored in Creative Writing and Graphic Design, with a minor in Spanish language. During her time there, she worked with students and professors to create a professional literary magazine called Mount Hope that took and published fiction and poetry submissions from writers around the country. Nicki was the managing editor for two years before graduating. She also spent a semester abroad in Barcelona, Spain, made the Dean’s List all eight semesters, and received the awards for Excellence in Leadership and Excellence in Literary Publishing her senior year. She was president of her community-service based sorority, worked as a writing tutor, and had her graphic design work regularly featured in campus exhibitions.

 

Skills

Design

  • Adobe Creative Suite
  • Sketch
  • Figma
  • WCAG Accessibility Compliance
  • Logo & Branding Design
  • Social Media Post Design

Development

  • HTML & CSS
  • Javascript/jQuery
  • PHP
  • WordPress
  • WooCommerce / Shopify
  • Theme Development