A Short, But Extensive Background
An in-depth history of my background, experiences, education and more.
Presented in Reverse Chronological Order
AIGA Connecticut
Director, In-House, July 2019 – Present
Chair, In-House, January 2019 – July 2019
Supporting Level Member, January 2017 – Present
Student Member, October 2013 – October 2015
AIGA CT supports our design community through education, advocacy, and inclusion. We work to engage AIGA members, non-members, and anyone who has an interest in design. All are welcome to join us through our events, volunteer positions, and social engagement.
My primary responsibility is to identify opportunities and help execute events that provide in-house designers new skills and social experiences. In this role, I work closely with the Director of Education and Director of Community.
Azul Seven
Design Thinking Bootcamp - March 2019
Overview of Course
Our three day immersive sessions arm attendees with the tools to build customer empathy by gathering insights and analyzing those insights into actions, leading to clear measurements and priorities.
The bootcamps are incredibly beneficial to anyone who is Customer facing; Product Managers, Engineers, Functional Leaders, Sales and eCommerce. Understanding your customers' perspective is essential to improve the products and services we provide them and this course will magnify your ability to do so.
Udemy
Certificate of Completion - User Experience (UX): The Ultimate Guide to Usability & UX - November 2019
This certificate above verifies that Ryan Thorp successfully completed the course User Experience (UX): The Ultimate Guide to Usability and UX on 11/30/2019 as taught by David Travis on Udemy. The certificate indicates the entire course was completed as validated by the student.
Overview of Course
Bake UX into your workflow by following a proven, user centred design framework.
Plan field visits and user interviews to uncover user needs.
Moderate a usability test and prioritise the observations.
Create personas, user stories, red routes and user journey maps.
Uncover and describe users’ mental models.
Choose appropriate schemes for classifying and organising information.
Design and conduct online and offline card sorting sessions.
Select appropriate user interface design patterns.
Develop cheap, throwaway prototypes to get quick and frequent feedback from your users.
Create user interface designs that exploit universal principles of visual design.
Design usability tests to measure time on task, success rate and user satisfaction.
Evaluate the usability of systems by applying usability heuristics.
Project Management for Success™
Certificate - Project Management Leadership - September 2016
Legrand, North & Central America
Graphic Designer, April 2016 – Present
Description of Position
Creation of Legrand branded materials, print and digital, throughout all North and Central America locations. Will occasionally collaborate with our head/parent company located in Limoges, France on larger, global projects.
Executes the design of all Legrand brand guidelines which includes treatments of logos, typography, color, imagery, video, app, web, etc., as well as all of their sub-brands and product lines across divisions, channels, and markets.
Communication and training of all creative updates to our teams which consist of designers, project managers and marketing employees across divisions, which include integrated, independent and associate brands, and product lines.
2016 CADC Student Conference and the Monica Wolff & Randall Smith Scholarship Competition
Recent Graduate Panel Speaker, April 2016
Foley
Graphic Designer, December 2015 – April 2016
Description of Position
Creation of content used across digital platforms, including their wordpress website, sales decks, presentations, web and email campaigns, as well as social media content and motion graphics which were used internally and externally.
Update to all materials prior to a rebrand, meeting with each department head to address concerns, and resolving those concerns in all newly created assets.
Department of Transportation
Graphic Designer, May 2014 – July 2014
Description of Position
Lead a team of student designers at Central Connecticut State University’s internal design agency: Central Design, to illustrate a series of maps for the Department of Transportations new bus line, the CT fastrak.
The deliverable assets for this project were a series of twelve maps, each to be featured prominently at the twelve newly constructed bus locations between New Britain and Hartford, CT.
Each map featured the immediate area and the surrounding prominent locations and businesses, marked within indicator rings for a quarter mile and half mile, in the event the user wanted to walk to a nearby restaurant, coffee shop, etc. This businesses were marked with carefully designed icons to differentiate the business type.
New Britain Museum of American Art
Graphic Designer, January 2014 – May 2014
Description of Position
Creation of all materials, digital and print, for current and upcoming exhibitions, including graphics for web, social, brochures, postcards and vinyl wall signage.
Documentation of artwork that enters the museum through photographing, image correction, and the entering of information into museums archival tool.
Ryan Thorp Design
Creative Director, October 2013 – Present
Description of Position
Brand and visual identity design – Working with clients to establish a brand’s identity and building upon an existing logo to develop a visual image.
Past client work includes logo and identity design, identity redesign, and brand application/execution.
Contact for further details on specific projects.
Central Connecticut State University
Master of Arts Degree in Information Design, May 2014 – December 2015
Bachelor of Arts Degree in Graphic Design, August 2010 – May 2014
Overview of University Experience
Completed and presented a Capstone Thesis on the topic of Wayfinding, in which I present the needed benefit of directional signage, designing based on universal design principles, designing to be ADA compliant, and how to best use symbols and iconography to be scalable across digital devices and printed media.
Established the “Society for Information Design”, a graduate-level student organization, which provided funding for Information Design students to visit museums, studios, agencies, and attend events.
Departmental Honors 2014
Dean’s List Recipient 2011 - 2014