Biography: A.R. Harter.
I am a graphic designer/illustrator with over twelve years of experience in publishing. I graduated from UCLA in 2008 with a BA in History and a minor in English, at which time I began working full time as a production/graphic designer at a small, Culver City-based educational publisher, where my background in history and English allowed me to create innovative designs while concurrently maintaining an editorial viewpoint on those projects I was involved in. While working full time, I was briefly enrolled in the ALA-accredited Master's of Library and Information Science program at San Jose State University. Though I left this program after two terms and without completing any degree, my time there further bolstered the research skills I acquired during the course of my undergraduate studies, serving to train me in excellent research techniques and procedures.
Still continuing to work full time, I completed a certificate program in Graphic Design through Santa Monica College in 2012. This program allowed me to refine the my graphic design skills, as prior to this I was primarily self-taught, having taken some college-level fine arts classes and received many years of on-the-job training. I am a self-motivated individual, which aided me greatly as both a student and a worker, since I frequently took the initiative to research and educate myself on those techniques not yet covered in my classes in order to better complete both my class and professional work in a dedicated and timely fashion.
I have extensive experience with design for both print and the Web, having recently been the head designer for the digital online curriculum Active Classroom. I have been responsible for the final interior and exterior designs for hundreds of books of supplementary educational materials as published by Social Studies School Service and its various subsidiaries. Though the majority of my experience lies in print book and eBook production, I also have a fair amount of experience with marketing materials such as PowerPoint presentations, catalogs, sellsheets, and tradeshow banners.