Hello!
I am Lily Eckenrode and a recent Drake University graphic design and advertising graduate. I am a motivated designer and I’m eager to build experience in a creative field. I am passionate about tackling problems through visual solutions. Although I like to keep myself busy, I try to spend my Saturdays at the Des Moines Farmers Market or drinking coffee at a new cafe. Back home in St. Louis, I grew up surrounded in a city with a great art culture and took frequent trips with my family to the St. Louis Art Museum. It was there where I knew I belonged in the creative field and since then, I’ve pushed myself to explore various creative outlets such as ceramics, printmaking and film photography. Although it’s no secret that I am passionate about art, I also enjoy food, fashion and traveling. During my free time you can find me in the kitchen creating one-of-a-kind Eckenrode recipes, crocheting on a comfy couch or catching up on the Oscar nominated films of the year.
At Drake, I was the Art Director for Drake Magazine, the university’s lifestyle magazine. Drake Mag pushed me creatively and helped refine my Adobe Creative Cloud skills, specifically Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign. I led a team of 12 designers which helped me grow my collaboration and leadership skills. Working with a group of creative and driven people taught me how to receive constructive criticism and how to provide advice to others.
On the more professional side of things, I've worked at Dotdash Meredith with WOOD Magazine as a design apprentice. I assisted with a variety of projects, my favorite being, propping and styling photo shoots, attending issue planning meetings, iconography, social media template design and cover mock-ups. At WOOD, I was able to take skills I’ve learned in the classroom and apply them to real-world projects and physically hold accomplishments in my hands in printed issues.
In the past, I have held various design and media positions, such as, a graphic design intern for @stlbucketlist where I curated social media content, a Graphic Design Co-Chair on Drake’s Student Activities Board (SAB) where I designed advertising for all SAB events across a range of media such as posters, banners, social media posts and even magnets. I am passionate about design and can’t wait to learn more about the design industry.