Today we’d like to introduce you to De Ivett.
Hi De, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I discovered my passion for design that became my career pathway back in high school!
I moved to Crestline in 1982 where I attended Rim of the World high school. I found myself spending endless hours setting type for the school’s newsletter and yearbook supplement. As editor of the yearbook during my senior year, I took a lot of photos for extracurricular activities and school life shots that were published in the annual. There my passion for graphic design and photography blossomed into a career path I have been on ever since.
I put myself through college by shooting real estate photography for Mike Glickman Realtors, in addition to working at my other two jobs, one working for my family’s business manufacturing hard drives, chassis and memory chips for the early Apple computers, and the other at a local print shop preparing mechanicals and stripping for the press. My Dad was a pressman his entire life, so I learned to appreciate the printing process and the art of perfection while working fast. I had a Macintosh 512k computer that used to create brochures and business cards using Pagemaker – an early desktop publishing software.
In college, I spent my free time in 2 of the campus darkrooms, experimenting with black and white printing techniques. I studied art, photography, typography and 3 dimensional art under two teachers, Joe Bavaro and Tom Mossman, who inspired my career and whose words and lessons still ring true to me today. I eventually built my own darkroom in my NoHo apartment bathroom, where my roommate and I took turns shooting and printing in our spare time. My subjects were actors who needed headshots and bands – my work was published in Music Connection Magazine.
My first job after college was at Color System Technology, where I learned to operate a proprietary video animation system for colorizing black and white film. Our first project was a music video for a band – New Kids on the Block. There I made connections to people I still work with today. That job was short-lived as the colorization technique was outsourced to another country leaving a whole lot of us unemployed with a unique skill that didn’t apply to any other job in Los Angeles.
So I went back to my roots in graphic design and landed my first agency position at Ervin Advertising and Design. Under the creative direction of Mike Ervin, I developed my chops for corporate design working on annual reports and ad campaigns for banking and financial businesses. In my third year, I was awarded a first-place certificate in design from the National Association of Investors Corp. for my work on the First American Financial 1993 Annual Report. I found my love for working with a creative team, making hard deadlines and all the while having fun.
Ervin sponsored me in an amazing employee retraining program that ignited my passion for interactive multimedia. I became a multimedia guru using an object-oriented programming language called ”Lingo” to create interactive experiences on CD-ROM. Working a short six months at Studio Software in downtown Los Angeles, I was the lead programmer for Grolier’s “How would you Survive” series of children’s CD-ROMs. I helped to run the Los Angeles “Lingo SIG” with my former Lingo instructor Kathy Kozel. Kathy was a huge inspiration to my career as the programming world was male-dominated, yet us techie girls found ourselves teaching and inspiring others to program in Lingo using OOP methods.
This pivot in my career took me on the journey to where I am today, crossing the line between creativity and technology with UI/UX expertise to lead the team at 5D Spectrum.
Prior to starting my own business, I worked at DZN the Design Group, where I was part of an innovative team of creatives who developed the first DVD menu screen for the studios. As Executive Producer of DVD, I managed a team of creatives to produce DVD titles such as The Matrix and Three Kings where I was involved in the creation of some of the first full-featured interactive DVDs, pushing the limits of the technology at that time.
I started my own business in 1999 with my first client, Schecter Guitar Research, building their website using the MIVA eCommerce platform. I have been a MIVA partner ever since and we now have a core team dedicated to developing MIVA eCommerce for a number of clients. In addition to web development for tech companies like Trillium (an Intel Company), American Express and Kodak, our focus was in developing interactive mini CD-ROMs with clients like Upper Deck (trading cards), TIBCO, Hilton, Laser Pacific and Red Bull followed by DVD development for Kodak, Microsoft, Sony and USHV. We designed set top games and other special features for many of the USHV children’s titles and we produced the Halo 3 special edition DVD for Microsoft in 9 languages for a global release.
I hired my first employee in 2000 who still works with me today along with a clientele that has been growing ever since.
In 2010, I rebranded my business with a new name: 5D Spectrum. The five “D”s stand for Discover, Design, Develop, Deploy, Deliver, a process that we apply to every project no matter what the size to produce consistent, high-quality solutions for marketing, branding and technology development. I looked back at my early agency days for inspiration to set some key goals that we have attained: to have a core creative team in-house and to be full-service keeping our work always interesting and diverse. We are focused on solving technical challenges and developing new technologies for our clients with unique creative solutions that meet their business needs. I have always had a passion for working with bleeding-edge technologies so now we are working on projects using blockchain, AI and most recently NFTs where we can build and create.
In 2017 I started on a path to become an educator by getting credentialed to teach technology and web design at the local high school in their after school CTE program. I have always loved teaching and now it is my way of giving back to the next generation of creative problem solvers.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I don’t think creative problem solving and technology development is ever a “smooth road” – every job has had its challenges, but that is part of the fun. I have a talent for being able to look at obstacles from a higher perspective to solve challenges by bringing on the right people or solutions and always being a straight shooter. Every challenge has been an opportunity to be really creative. With new technology development, we are often venturing into unchartered territory and we just need to get to the finish line no matter what it takes!
As you know, we’re big fans of 5D Spectrum. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
5D Spectrum is a full-service design agency comprised of professional strategists, designers and programmers who use our 5D Process to make every project a success.
Let us walk you through our successful 5D Process:
Discover. We take the time to understand your business, its challenges, and goals.
Design. We design to meet your immediate and long-term business strategy and goals.
Develop. We innovate digital solutions that evolve your business.
Deploy. We fully support the launch of your project on time and on budget.
Deliver. We support your after-launch marketing and maintenance needs.
We take a deep dive into understanding our client’s needs, business objectives and competitive landscape before we ever design or program a thing. This first step in our process allows us to design and develop the project with confidence that we are delivering something that will make a difference for our clients. I think a unique differentiator is our ability to solve problems creatively and technologically under one roof. We have our strategists, designers and programmers all working together to create unique solutions that produce results.
A recent project that I am most proud of has allowed us to do performance tuning, SEO and UI/UX updates to their eCommerce website that has produced a significant increase in organic traffic and sales. I love to see our clients grow and succeed!
How do you think about happiness?
With all of my current responsibilities as CEO of 5D Spectrum, I find happiness in my creative outlets: music and photography. As a Mom, I have found joy and laughter every day since my son Arthur Charles Eldridge came into my world 18 years ago.
I am a bass player and songwriter. I played in a punk rock band for five years in Hollywood back in 1998-2003 followed by a pop band that played a couple of sold-out shows with Daisy Rock’s Pretty in Punk lineup 2009 and 2010. In 2010 I brought my son Arthur out to sing a song I wrote at the Roxy in front of a sold-out audience – he was only eight years old and rocked the house! I currently write and practice playing bass for fun and have plans to record several songs with a former bandmate in the coming months.
I love cameras and taking pictures. I recently upgraded my photography equipment to a Nikon z50 mirrorless camera and new professional lighting – it may actually be time to retire the tungsten lights I bought back in my early college days! I like to shoot macro photography of flowers, butterflies and birds – and can often be found assisting LA photographer Michael Dee shooting portraits, products and archival quality art photography for local artists and galleries.
My career path has been a long journey with adventurous twists and turns, but I can honestly say that I found my way of doing things I truly love.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: https://5dspectrum.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/5dspectrum/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/5DSpectrum/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/5DSpectrum
- SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/de-ivett/sets/des-songs
- Other: https://www.instagram.com/deivett/
Image Credits
Headshot of De Ivett by Michael Dee Working shots by Michael Dee Butterfly by De Ivett Hummingbird Dancing by De Ivett Lorikeet by De Ivett Flower by De Ivett Arthur and De at the Roxy, photos provided by Daisy Rock Girl Guitars
