Jared Rodriguez

Portland, OR rodriguez.jared.y@gmail.com jared-rodriguez.com LinkedIn

Summary

Designer and illustrator with 17 years in nonprofit digital journalism, including seven as Creative Director at Truthout.org. Editorial illustration and collage on daily deadlines. Art direction, visual identity, and web design on full site and brand overhauls.

Experience

2025–Present

Website / Project Manager

Truthout Center for Grassroots Journalism

  • Manage website operations for two nonprofit news sites, The Appeal and YES! Magazine, with plugin, security and uptime management, contributor coordination, and workflow documentation
  • Take on illustration and editorial collage assignments for Truthout and YES! Magazine
2026–Present

Contract Illustrator

Convergence Magazine

  • Deliver 3–5 pieces a month, mostly editorial collage in the magazine’s house style, on 72-hour turnaround and occasionally 24, plus companion social assets
2018–2025

Creative Director

Truthout.org

Previously Digital Liaison (2012–2018) and Photo Editor (2008–2012, started as Videographer in 2008)

  • Art directed and project managed Truthout’s most recent full website and brand overhaul, coordinating work across editorial, design, and development
  • Contributed to two CMS migrations (Drupal to Joomla to WordPress) across three site redesigns over roughly a decade, including stepping in to correct a misaligned vendor delivery on the first migration, and coordinating stakeholder input and sign-off on the second
  • Produced 400+ published illustrations and 100+ photo collages over sixteen years, for stories where illustration served the subject better than available photography
  • Designed the newsroom’s annual reports in Webflow
  • Owned newsletter design and production (Mailchimp, FeedOtter) and daily editorial publishing in WordPress; authored internal documentation and process standards; mentored contributors on visual consistency

Selected Projects

  • Commissioned and art-directed independent illustrators and designers for film and web projects, including poster concepts, title treatments, and a gaming card template
  • Cover art and eight interior plates for Media Control: News as an Institution of Power and Social Control (Bloomsbury, 2015), credited on cover
  • Commercial illustration for Severin Films and Puncture Wound Pins, including Blu-ray key art
  • Co-created, wrote, illustrated, and independently published an original horror-comedy graphic novel, The Denim Devil
  • Feature film and music video editing and production through Mongrel Studios

Skills

Editorial Illustration · Visual Identity & Design Systems · Creative Direction · Project Management & Stakeholder Communication

Tools Figma, Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign), WordPress, Webflow, HTML/CSS, DaVinci Resolve

Education

B.S., Television, Film and New Media San Diego State University

A.A., Cinema Studies Palomar Community College