Mary provides the strategic marketing muscle necessary for effective communication solutions. Before joining MCreative in 2003, she was Director of Communications at Salem Academy and College and spent thirteen years at Long Haymes Carr Advertising (now Mullen). Mary has successfully led marketing and design efforts for major foundation and education clients, as well as statewide non-profit organizations. Mary, who attended Hiram College in Ohio before earning a Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology from Kent State University, is a founding member of The Women's Fund of Winston-Salem. She lives with her partner, 6 horses, 3 dogs, and 35 cats on a farm in Davie County, where she has achieved no small amount of historical significance by taking 3rd place in the 2006 Cooleemee Lawnmower parade.

 

Amanda is our senior designer responsible for the art direction and design of major print and interactive projects, although she easily could be talked into salsa dancing on a beach in Mexico. She has received multiple CASE awards, including both National Gold and Bronze, and her work has been recognized by PRINT, the ADDYs, AIGA, the Council on Foundations, the Healthcare Marketing Report and Marketing Healthcare Today. Amanda was valedictorian in high school and went on to the College of Design at North Carolina State University, where she graduated early and with honors. Occasionally you'll find her getting dirty while camping with her boys, or obsessively working out at the gym, just in case the salsa dancer idea works out.

Jon hails from the Bull City of Durham, North Carolina. A graduate of Colgate University with a Master's degree from the College of Design at North Carolina State University, Jon has taught English in Japan, sold cheese in Rhode Island, shoveled snow in Colorado and cycled from Nice to Madrid — all the while perfecting his skills in identity, print, motion and interactive design. Jon is making an effort to ride his bike to work more often, so give him a shout out if you see him making the long quarter-mile trek.

 

Lisa joined MCreative in 1998 and transformed our fledgling design firm into a full service agency with her many years of print production expertise and freakish organizational skills. Not content to just make sure our work prints nicely and delivers on time, Lisa is also responsible for coordination of schedules, budgets and generally running the place. Her print production prowess (go ahead, say that three times fast) is truly inspiring, and rumor has it that while proofing print runs, Lisa's eyes actually glow from intense concentration. We'd love to include something personal about Lisa, but since she sleeps, eats, and breathes MCreative and our clients' projects, there's really little time for much else.

Stephen Young writes. Letters to his grandmother, apologies to his wife, silly songs for his son. He's written travel diaries from Paris, Venezuela, and the broken-down lane of the New Jersey Turnpike. As far as unpublished novels, yes, of course — and he forgives anyone inclined to hear this and groan. After graduating from UNC Chapel Hill, Stephen hauled lobster traps off the coast of Maine, tilled manure into various North Carolina gardens, taught a few minutes of high school English, and once nearly died (yes, really) in a disastrous experimental drug study. He now feels fortunate to have less troublesome employment finding and arranging the right words for MCreative projects.

Catherine is an award-winning designer with experience in the development of student recruitment materials, campaign identity, annual reports, interactive CDs, websites, alumni magazines, packaging and other collateral. Before joining MCreative in 1997, she was the art director at Wake Forest University. She has been recognized with numerous Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) awards, including CASE National Designer of the Year in 1996 and Grand Gold Award for Overall Publications Program. When not transporting her young daughters to school and summer camp, Catherine spends time on her farm in the North Carolina mountains. She is a graduate of the College of Design at North Carolina State University.

The newest member of the M Creative team, Vanessa shook things up from the get-go by forcing everyone onto the grid. The social grid, that is. Before arriving in Winston-Salem, Vanessa spent three years as a public relations professional in Providence, RI, and it was during that time that she began to work social media tools into daily practices for herself, her company and her clients. Now she's our social communications strategist, and when she's not bugging us to Tweet, Like or post, she's helping us to develop programs that give our clients a chance to build better awareness and create lasting, meaningful relationships with their supporters. Vanessa graduated early from Johnson & Wales University in 2005 with a degree in integrated marketing communications (not cooking). She uses her free time as an artist, tree-climber, casual gamer and robot enthusiast.