Chelsea Callas

My career path has taken a weaving and winding path, so hang with me. I started as a project manager at an agency called Buehler, Inc. and was there for a couple years managing all kinds of projects. Before that, I had done some graphic design work, just self-taught in smaller marketing roles. While working at the agency, I realized that what I really wanted to do was be creative, so I ended up going back to school and continued working at that agency while I was in school to get a design degree. Once I graduated, the agency actually moved me over to our design team, so I was no longer a project manager but a graphic designer. I was there for a few years until there was some turmoil at the executive level and the agency kind of broke apart. A couple years later, I got laid off when they took away the entire creative section of the company to just focus on PR. After that, I took a number of contract roles at Nike, Coalition (a global cybersecurity company), and a local company called Coast, all doing graphic design. Those contract roles were longer, like 7-8 months, so I was kind of part of the team. Then I was freelancing and picked up a bunch of freelance work for these women I used to work with at Buehler Inc who had started their own agency, Lumino Digital. I was doing a full rebrand for them, and they mentioned they needed a project manager full-time. I pitched them on hiring me to do project management work and lead projects, but also be their creative director, leading creative for any clients needing creative work. They hired me for it, so now my official title is Creative Director and Project Lead at Lumino. I'm doing a whole lot for them - we're relaunching their website this month, launching a whole new brand, doing website design projects for clients where I'm acting as creative director, and overseeing other types of projects in more of a logistics PM role. I usually start my day taking care of smaller admin project management tasks, emailing clients, making sure my teams are on track. Then I usually end up with a block of calls every day from like 10 until 1 or so, client calls or internal calls. After those calls, I have some admin-type post-call tasks, and in the afternoons is my favorite time of day because that's when I really go deep focus on design stuff. I make sure my design projects are on track, flag things to clients or my team that need to be flagged, and I get to really focus on that. If I'm lucky, I can just do that for the rest of the day - that's my creative time and I try to protect it.