About Jeffrey
Passionate and dedicated, I am always seeking new challenges and opportunities for personal and professional growth.
Jeffrey Opp
Eager to expand my horizons and put my artistic talents to practical use, I transitioned into creating design work for clients. This experience honed my knack for empathizing with users and strengthened my ability to transform client needs into tangible, beautiful designs.
The thrill of entrepreneurship led me to co-own a craft kit business. It not only further polished my design skills, but also gave me precious insights into the business world, extending my expertise to product development, marketing, and customer service.
Now, my heart is set on designing for others, leveraging my rich background and versatile skill set. Armed with valuable UX training, I'm more prepared than ever to dive deep into user needs and craft designs that are not only eye-catching but also functional and user-friendly. The discipline, resilience, and strong work ethic instilled in me by my military experience accompany me in every project I embark on.
How I got here
My dad, a librarian, would take me to work on some weekends. While he would do his work, he would sit me down in front of a computer and leave me there to draw for hours. I'm sure that I made some amazing creations.
My friend would always share his mail-order CCS skateboard catalogs with me. I spent so much time just looking at all the different designs on decks and wheels.
After the skateboard obsession came music. I would sit and just listen to music. While listening, I would look at the imagery on the album cover and booklet over and over.
On a month-long trip around Europe with my best friend, we visited dozens of museums. It was really the first time that I had seen that much visual art work. I must have fallen in love with art because that is when I decided to go to art school.
While I was doing research in undergrad, I found artists that painted, made photos, and did design work. I'm thinking of most of the artists involved in the Constructivist movement and most of the Bauhaus artists. Seeing them, made me realize it was possible to do art and design and that design would be a valuable skill to have alongside the those I was learning.
It's fair to say that grad school shaped me as a person and artist, but it also shaped me as a designer. I learned so much about strategy, theory, and collaboration. I discovered how great art, like design, is an experience. I also designed our class's graduation exhibition catalog with a wonderful colleague.
This isn't so much a specific moment but a slow shift from earning money as a photographer and photo editor to doing design work. Through the early clients, I learned a ton about working with people as a designer. The experiences weren't always easy but they were always valuable.
Rebranding this business changed the nature of the company. It went from a simple e-commerce business driven by selling customers whimsical design options to a business focused on creating a meaningful experience for its customers. Actually, it went from having customers to having fans, and truly fanatic ones at that.
I became interested in expanding my design skillset and began a UX design course. During the course, I realized that I was already doing UX design at PopLush Embroidery. Taking the course helped me formalize the process and fit puzzle pieces together forming a more complete picture.
