About
Cody was born and raised in the heart of the bluegrass state, Lexington,
Kentucky.
When he wasn’t playing sports (baseball, basketball and football), Cody
spent a lot of his free time drawing. This hobby would lead the way to his interest in design as he got older.
Cody first found design in high school, after his art teacher urged him to
take graphic design following the drawing class he had completed that semester. It didn’t take long for him to get hooked into the world of design, and he quickly began experimenting with logo and branding work throughout the class. During his senior year, Cody would earn the Graphic Design award for his high school, in recognition of the work he produced throughout the class.
After starting college with a mechanical engineering major, it didn’t take
long for his creative drive to compel him to switch lanes. Because the University of Kentucky did not offer a graphic design major at the time, Cody decided to pursue a Marketing degree and minor in Digital Media and Design. He elected to take many photography classes to fulfil his minor, in the effort to expand his creative capabilities into multiple mediums.
His first job was at a multi-sport venue, the Kentucky Basketball Academy, where among other obligations he would put together the schedule graphics
and brackets that would be on display during basketball events and tournaments. Here, he would also tinker with t-shirt designs by manually putting together different shirt appliques and coming up with different designs. This initial experience only started to scratch his creative itch, and Cody would continue to pursue a career in graphic design from there on out.
His first real break into a full-on design position would be with the Kentucky Football Team, where he was the first person to be brought in specifically
for a design position. He spent over 2 and a half years working for the team creating unique and compelling designs for the program and the athletes they were recruiting. While at UK Football, Cody’s designs would be recognized for their recruiting efforts: earning a top-25 ranking for National Signing Day graphics by InTheTrenches30 (now @trenches on social media), and an article being published by Fox Sports about a recruiting poster he created.
After his time in Lexington, Cody would move on to Maryland where he became the graphic design coordinator for the University of Maryland Football
team. In this position, his work with the football team helped the athletic department garner a top-25 ranking for visual communication across power-5 athletic departments. During his time in College Park, Cody’s focus was on building a unique brand for Maryland Football to separate the program from others across the country. Inspiration was drawn from everyday interactions with the players and coaching staff, as well as points of pride for people from the state of Maryland and the entire DMV area. The goal of this effort was to develop a visual identity that was authentic to the team, to the fans, and to the athletes being recruited to join the program.
From College Park, Cody took the opportunity to build a creative department from the ground up with University of Pittsburgh Athletics. Starting
immediately after the holiday break in January of 2018, Cody quickly got to work building out processes and procedures to effectively manage the intake of requests and develop a consistent workflow for the completion of projects. While developing these processes, creativity was not lost, and within the first 6 months of the department’s launch, Cody and his team earned Pitt Athletics a top-25 ranking of their own. Around the same time, Cody was invited to speak on a panel of 4 collegiate creatives at a sports creative conference, called Major Level Creative Connect (MLC Connect). This was the first time the conference had collegiate creatives speak on a panel at the event.
A little over a year into his stint at Pitt Athletics, the department launched its new identity. Leading up to the launch Cody had worked along with
department leadership, and the Nike GIG team to help shape the final direction of the new marks and colors. Cody lead the charge in developing assets to effectively “flip” the entire department’s presence in accordance with the reveal event. This flip included all social media profiles (sports and internal departments), as well as the website, and printed materials (letterhead, notecards, envelopes, etc.). Through these efforts, the ultimate goal of having an instantaneous “flip” was achieved and the new brand was well received by athletes, staff, and fans.
In September of 2019, Cody received an opportunity to dive into the professional sports arena and moved back to the DMV. He currently serves as the
senior graphic designer for the Washington Football Team. In this role Cody works as the creative lead for the organization, and develops style guides and quality standards to elevate and unite the visual identity for the brand. In the summer of 2020, the organization announced that they would be changing their name effective for the start of the 2020 NFL season. While preparing assets for the upcoming season, Cody also helped to lead the creative effort of carrying out the name and identity change across the organization to successfully complete the change under 2 months of it being announced to the public.
Along with experience developing brands and visual identities through graphic design, Cody also has extensive experience directing and executing
photoshoots in various settings including: studio shoots, event coverage, sporting event photography, and architectural photography.