Allow me to introduce myself.

Hi everyone, my name is Patrick Tolerico and welcome. I am from Honesdale Pennsylvania, a small coal mining town outside Scranton Pennsylvania. I am a graduate of the Interdisciplinary Arts program at the University of Pittsburgh. I am focused on graphic arts and creative writing. This degree has proved to be beneficial as I have been exposed to almost every form of art and writing.

Growing up, I was never around the arts very much. I come from an engineering family that was more technical than creative. I never looked at myself and thought being an artist was right for me. I wanted to follow in the footsteps of my family. Well, that all changed when I started playing around with photography and took a class on campus. It all sprouted from there; I soon took a graphic design course and learned to love every minute. I have chosen to devote myself to this career three and a half years ago, I could not be happier.

My style is growing and developing all the time. I enjoy an abstract and minimalist approach to my pieces. I like using as little as possible to make a piece; this allows me to put my technical side to work. I focus on every detail I can work on until the project is perfect. I have had my work displayed all around the art building on campus and have had my work showcased on my school's social media. I created merchandise for the tennis team on campus to raise funds for the team. I assisted in curating and providing art for my campus’s award-winning publication Bailey’s Beads. I worked for the Marilyn Horne Museum and Exhibit Center and created a handy companion guide.

After serious consideration, I followed my dream of becoming User Experience Designer and enrolled in the Google UX Certificate Program. This program taught me the ins and outs of the UX world. They taught me how to research and run testing sessions, how to iterate on my designs, the different types of roles a UX designer can have, and walked me through the steps it takes to create app and responsive website prototypes. I soon learned that doing UX was the career choice for me. During the course, I made two apps and a responsive website.