Stephen Cruz

Lead product strategy, UX/UI, feature definition, and AI-assisted development of a mobile-first loyalty, rewards, booking, and administration platform for a multi-location arcade business. Translate owner and staff needs into requirements, workflows, design decisions, and QA criteria.

Conceived and product-directed an AI-assisted opportunity research and career pipeline platform. Define information architecture, onboarding, source quality, transferable-skills matching, and review workflows; direct iterative delivery through AI coding agents with hands-on design and quality review.

Served as senior creative partner to ownership across multiple brands, translating business goals into brand systems, products, campaigns, and digital experiences. Directed creative execution with external developers and an in-house video producer, maintaining design fidelity through launch.

Deliver brand identity, responsive websites, campaigns, consulting, product and portrait photography, and retouching. Guide projects from concept through deployment, combining visual design, front-end development, content, and direct client collaboration.

Served as sole senior creative for three years before leading three junior designers, partnering with account management across hospitality, nightlife, cannabis, consumer products, and local businesses. Directed a team producing approximately 50-65 finished assets weekly while personally creating about 20.

Supervised prepress, production setup, equipment troubleshooting, and quality control for a retail workflow exceeding 50 weekly price guides, signage requests, and promotional production jobs. Established an in-house embroidery capability and trained five employees.

Produced enterprise email campaigns, modular templates, and customer communications in Oracle Responsys within a regulated financial-services environment. Applied web-development expertise to rendering QA, template consistency, and CRM workflows.

Developed promotional creative across graphic design, photography, multimedia production, and website design and development, supporting the organization's education and marketing communications.

Led the agency's web development function, helping expand a traditionally print-focused regional agency into web and digital services. Directed website and campaign development from concept through front-end production, testing, and deployment for clients including Seven Hills Foundation and Worcester Art Museum.

Designed and built 15+ client websites, helping businesses establish their online presence through visual identity, interface design, HTML/CSS, usability, and direct client collaboration.

Google Analytics Certification.

Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design from Westfield State University, completed in 2000.

Adobe Certified Professional certification.