Employee Spotlight – Stephani Rosenstein

August 18, 2023

Meet WBD’s Art Director, Stephani Rosenstein! At the firm, Stephani creates award-winning visuals for our clients at Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Veteran Health Administration (VHA), is responsible for overseeing the visual aspects of creative projects and provides guidance to our team of designers.

What does a typical day in the life of an Art Director look like?

I usually start my workday at 8:00. I work on the FEMA and VHA contracts, so my first step is to check my FEMA email to see if they need anything. The VHA is the busier of the two contracts, so I want to ensure FEMA gets the attention they need before I get too busy with VHA. Next, I check our Monday.com board to see if there are any new requests for the team. I assign any new requests accordingly and then check to see what projects are due that day or if there are projects that have been out for review for a while that may need a little nudge. After that, it’s on! The rest of my day is spent designing, proofing, attending meetings, and helping anyone who may have last-minute or rush tasks, projects, or questions. If I’m lucky I can find a few minutes at the end of my day to learn something new on LinkedIn learning. It can get hectic sometimes, but I love it.

What three skills do you think are essential to do your job?

Creativity, obv. 😉
A curious mind. You have to be able to realize if there’s something you don’t know and then learn how to do it. Maybe it’s finding new software, maybe it’s just learning a new feature in software you already know! It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been doing a job, there’s always more to learn!
Patience and an ability to stay organized. I’m putting those together into one.

What do you value most about being a member of the internal teams at WBD?

The internal work I’ve done at WBD is the most fun! WBD gives me that opportunity to really get creative. And since I love the teams that I work with, that makes it even better!

What made you choose WBD and what makes you stay?

I chose WBD because doing government consulting is really a very different kind of work for a creative. I’ve done corporate work, I’ve done small business work, I’ve done studio work. Consulting is a whole different world and I wanted to learn more about it. I also loved the idea of working with VHA and FEMA. Those are the two agencies that I really felt I would feel the most fulfilled working with. I stay because, not only did I get all those things, but I have an awesome team that I work with and the culture is amazing. When you find all those things in one company, you stay as long as you can.

What motivates you?

You mean besides the paycheck? I kid, I kid. What motivates me is all the stuff that makes me stay here. Great work, great company, great team and the ability to grow and be creative? It’s a win-win-win…win.

Who has been your most influential professional mentor?

I’ve been doing this for a long time so there have really been a lot of great mentors. I’m honestly not sure how to pick just one, so I’ll pick the most recent one. She will know it’s her when she reads this. She hired me as a designer not long after I moved to North Carolina from San Diego. She gave me the opportunity to grow. She gave me the opportunity to learn. She gave me the opportunity to succeed. Seven years later, we’ve been through a few companies together and I’m still just as blown away by her knowledge, energy and tenacity as I was the first day she hired me on. We don’t talk as much as I’d like anymore but she’s still around. Hi, Cara!

What advice do you have for people interested in becoming graphic designers?

Take the time to learn what you need to learn to be a great designer and don’t stop learning!! Creativity is a natural trait but there are rules (I know, booo!). You need to learn them. This is an ever-evolving field so you will never run out of fun programs to learn and fun projects to work on. And don’t forget your people skills. You’ll need them! Remember, design is a very subjective thing. What one person loves, another hates. So, you have to be flexible!