ML Melanie Lumanog Creative Operations Portfolio
Positioning Creative Systems Builder

15+ years building smarter creative systems.

Art Director for 10 years, consultant for 5, and focused on automation, production workflows, 3D asset development, and scalable creative operations.

Best fit for
Creative operations leadership Automation and workflow design 3D asset and production systems
See project areas View experience
Automation Adobe scripting, Action Sets, data-driven production, and workflow systems built to replace slow manual tasks.
3D Blender-based modeling, UV mapping, rendering, and design-to-render pipelines for web-ready asset output.
Leadership Team development, hiring, branding systems, approvals, and production standards across large-scale creative operations.
Art Direction Brand Systems Production Automation Adobe Scripting Blender 3D Workflows Pre-Press Expertise

About

Creative leadership grounded in systems thinking.

I am a creative operations leader, automation specialist, and technical problem-solver with a background spanning art direction, branding systems, production design, 3D workflows, and internal tool development.

Over the course of my career, I have led design teams, managed large-scale branding and production initiatives, and built systems that dramatically improve efficiency and consistency. I work especially well in complex environments where new tools, processes, or production systems need to be learned and built quickly.

My approach combines practical execution with creative judgment: I focus on building solutions that teams can actually use, maintain, and scale.

10 years as an Art Director in upper management
20 designers led across training, hiring, and quality systems
5 years consulting on automation, 3D workflows, and production tools

Experience

Leadership, production depth, and hands-on technical execution.

Oct 2020 - Present

Consulting engagement with Ram Group

Consultant - Creative Automation, 3D Workflow, and Production Systems

Modernized workflows through Illustrator scripting, UV export systems, Blender rendering pipelines, digital asset development, and internal tool concepts focused on repeatability, speed, and cleaner output organization.

  • Learned Blender from the ground up and became proficient in modeling, UV mapping, rendering, and web-ready asset preparation
  • Connected Illustrator production assets to Blender-based render workflows
  • Built automation ideas and production systems that reduced repetitive manual work
  • Focused on scalable workflows rather than one-off asset creation

Jul 2020 - Oct 2020

Spencer and Company - Commercial Design & Interiors

Senior Graphic Artist / Strategic Response Team

Supported strategic response and presentation development for a commercial design and interiors company by quickly learning CEROS and building polished RFP presentations for multiple business opportunities.

Dallas, Texas, United States | Full-time

  • Learned CEROS rapidly in a fast-paced environment
  • Built RFP presentations for multiple companies
  • Contributed to presentation work that required polish, speed, and adaptability

Sep 2010 - Jul 2020

Advanced-Online, a Follett Company

Art Department Manager (Art Director)

Led a 20-person design team while overseeing branding systems, licensing-related design execution, web assets, marketing deliverables, new-store creative, and production standards across corporate and collegiate accounts.

  • Directed branding guideline development, approvals, and brand-direction alignment
  • Managed pre-press and production files across silkscreen, UV inkjet, sublimation, engraving, embroidery, deboss, decal, and specialty methods
  • Maintained color consistency and production accuracy across decoration types
  • Served as hiring manager and helped roll out training, quality standards, and process improvements
  • Built Adobe-based automation and structured systems that reduced manual production labor

Projects

Portfolio work organized by impact area, not disconnected samples.

01

Creative Leadership & Operations

Ten years of art direction, upper-management leadership, branding oversight, approvals, production standards, team development, and creative support across major corporate and collegiate accounts.

02

Automation & Systems

Adobe scripting, Action Sets, structured production workflows, data-driven image generation, and internal process redesign that replaced slow manual work with scalable systems.

03

3D & Digital Asset Development

Blender-based modeling, UV mapping, rendering, and design-to-render workflows built to support web-ready asset output and production-friendly organization.

04

Strategic Presentation & Marketing Tools

High-value CEROS presentation development for strategic response work in the Dallas Design District, created under tight timelines with strong visual polish.

Skills

What I bring.

Leadership & direction

  • Art direction and upper-management leadership
  • Team leadership, hiring, and training
  • Branding guideline development and licensing execution
  • Strong follow-through and solution-oriented execution

Production & systems

  • Pre-press and production file development
  • Color management across multiple production methods
  • Workflow redesign and process improvement
  • Digital and web asset production

Technical capabilities

  • Adobe automation and JavaScript scripting
  • Blender 3D modeling, UV mapping, and rendering
  • Presentation development using CEROS
  • Rapid learning across new platforms and tools

Education

Degrees and formal study.

Postgraduate study

Purdue University

Applied Generative AI Specialization

Completed postgraduate certificate study focused on applied generative AI, expanding hands-on knowledge of modern AI workflows, model usage, and practical implementation approaches.

Bachelor's degree

University of Texas at Dallas

Graduated 2010 | Bachelor's degree in ATEC (now Media Arts and Design)

Studied in a multidisciplinary program that blended art, technology, design, and emerging media, with a focus on 3D modeling and animation, programming fundamentals, and traditional art.

The program emphasized creative and technical problem-solving across digital media, helping build an early foundation in the mix of visual thinking and technical execution that continues to shape my work.

  • Focus areas included 3D modeling and animation, programming fundamentals, and traditional art
  • Developed within an interdisciplinary environment connecting art, technology, design, and media
  • Built a foundation that supports later work in automation, digital assets, and production systems

Associate degree

Tarrant County College

Graduated 2007 | Associate of Arts (A.A.)

Completed Associate of Arts studies before continuing into advanced creative and technical coursework at the University of Texas at Dallas.

Certifications

Continuing education that supports modern technical work.

Completed August 2025

Applied Generative AI Specialization

Postgraduate Certificate | Purdue University

Completed multiple certifications along with a postgraduate certificate from Purdue University in Applied Generative AI Specialization, strengthening an already established foundation in creative systems, automation, and technical problem-solving.

Certificate

Building LLM Applications

Completed certificate work centered on building practical LLM-powered workflows, including a full-stack NLP project created entirely in the Python console.

  • Built a conversational assistant that answered questions from HR policy PDFs
  • Used FAISS for vector storage, OpenAI embeddings for chunk encoding, and GPT-3.5-Turbo for retrieval-aware responses
  • Worked through document ingestion, preprocessing, embedding generation, prompt engineering, and retrieval-augmented generation workflows

Certificate

AI Models and Architecture

Advanced coursework focused on the structure and scaling of modern AI systems, with emphasis on understanding how large models can be applied more effectively in production environments and workflow design.

  • Studied transformer internals, attention mechanisms, and architecture scaling
  • Covered training optimization and real-world deployment strategies
  • Strengthened the ability to evaluate where AI models fit into pipelines, tooling, and automation systems

Certificate

AGS: AI Literacy

Completed foundational and intermediate AI coursework covering artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning, transformers, NLP, BERT, GPT models, prompt engineering, and attention mechanisms.

  • Studied the progression from AI, ML, and DL fundamentals through transformer-based language models
  • Covered self-attention, text processing in transformers, BERT, GPT models, and prompt engineering concepts
  • Completed a course-end project using ChatGPT to create an interactive storytelling experience with branching paths and iterative narrative refinement

Certificate

AGS: Python Programming Fundamentals

Built a stronger foundation in Python through hands-on work with data types, control flow, functions, file handling, and clean, readable problem-solving patterns that support scripting, automation, and prototyping.

  • Strengthened practical Python skills relevant to automation, workflow design, and internal tool development
  • Applied core programming concepts through structured problem-solving and file-based data handling
  • Completed a course-end project for a personal expense tracker with categorization, budgeting, CSV save/load support, and an interactive menu-driven interface

Testimonials

How colleagues describe working with me.

Jenna Bradford

Director of User Experience for Falkon Technologies

May 6, 2014 | Reported directly to Melanie

Jenna described Melanie as an incredible boss who stayed positive and professional throughout two years of working together. She highlighted Melanie's technical skill, creativity, helpfulness, and consistent professionalism.

"She was an incredible boss who stayed positive and professional throughout my entire 2 years of working with her."

Michael Mandahl

AI Consultant

February 27, 2013 | Senior colleague

Michael described Melanie as highly capable, organized, efficient, and effective across many responsibilities, noting her ability to wear many different hats while maintaining strong day-to-day execution.

"Melanie is a top notch employee who is capable of wearing many different hats while performing a wide variety of functions."

Contact

Let's connect around creative operations, automation, or production systems.

m.lumanog@gmail.com LinkedIn