Board Spotlight: Marisa Martin

Meet Marisa! She’s definitely the most energetic person you’ll meet today (or this month), so you know we’re super-lucky to have her as our Membership Director.

Born in Kansas and raised in New Jersey, Marisa found herself in Baltimore for college. She started out as a bio/psych major, pursuing her need to figure out how and what makes people tick. As a kid, she constantly doodled in notebooks but never thought much of it…but by her senior year, she’d found her calling in graphic design and had fallen in love with Charm City.

Ask her what she loves about design and she’ll say it’s all about the people.

“I love being able to connect with others through my work,” she says. “From designing a website to a printed piece, translating ideas into words and images, and then communicating with others through that end result, is the ultimate thrill for me.”

Marisa’s love of design and being social translates well to her role on the board. “Being on the board is great because I get to be part of a solid community of designers. I want to help change the perception of designers within society. Designers should be strategists and leaders who shape the world and make it a better place to be, not just people who simply make pretty things. With the local and national support of AIGA, I think we can do that!”

On the list of her many influences, Marisa has found both inspiration and comfort in a letter written by Jean-Paul Sartre. In this letter he writes, “There may be more beautiful times, but this one is ours. And let’s do it with everything.” It serves as a reminder be true to herself⏤to grab life by the horns and make the most out of it. She says, “You may not be in your ideal situation, but you have the power to work your way there!”

When Marisa isn’t designing, playing field hockey or jamming to music, she dreams of traveling. “I want to go everywhere and see everything. There’s no place not on my list to visit. I want to learn what makes other people tick and how they work, think and react.” Marisa’s favorite part about traveling: putting herself in someone else’s shoes and understanding how they live.

And if she had to create an ice cream flavor that captured the spirit of Charm City, she’d serve up a scoop of steamed crab Old Bay ice cream in a Berger cookie cone!

By AIGA Baltimore
Published January 29, 2014