Home About Me Graphic Design Photography

WHO AM I

Milena Ugrinova - Mim

For more than half of my life, I have been passionate about creating images as a graphic designer and photographer. I have designed from scratch unique branding for companies and products, developing their visuality on all kind of prints and digitals media. I use with confidence Adobe products: Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign, plus Premiere Pro and Dreamweaver and I’ve never been afraid to learn more about any tool or technic. In addition, I have experience managing different web sites, online stores and social media channels.

I have an academic degree in Arts and Graphic design and a bachelor’s in Photography. I have been working as a graphic designer and photographer for more than 20 years in the IT industry with different target profiles before falling in love with Food and Beverage sector, which is highly customer-orientated and collaborative. I am positive-minded, an excellent team-worker, self-motivated, organised and fully capable of multitasking and working to tight deadlines under pressure, thanks to my advanced skill set and wealth of experience. I have a keen eye for aesthetics and details but never lose the view over the whole project. I can create brands but also be a creative, flexible and innovative brand keeper.

20+ years

Professional Designer

Print and Web

corporate and product

5 years

Design Education

Art School

graphic design

4 years

University Education

Photography

bachelor degree

14+ years

Photography Passion

The Beauty

comes from the light

MY LATEST JOB

Barrel and Stone

Creative Manager

March 2018 – September 2020

The company sells to a variety of hospitality venues and leisure groups. During my time, I had the privilege to work with national and international brands such as Hilton, Rank Leisure Group, Sodexo, Punch Taverns, Crowne Plaza, Merlin Entertainment and many more. As a creative manager, I liaised directly with all the clients, designing for them bespoke graphic content, including brands, food menus, posters and digital marketing materials. Also, I used my photography skills to create original image content for the company and its partners. I produced Barrel and Stone's cookbooks and training stop motion videos from scratch.

Looking backwards, I left behind hundreds of vectorized logos, a huge number of food menus, photographs, stationery, posters and banners, digital content for social media, inhouse brochures, banners, brand guides, cookbooks and many more.

I swapped the print contractors gaining better quality, fast turnaround and saved thousands of pounds for the company.

Some of the partners and clients of Barrel and Stone I have worked with:

PREVIOUS JOBS

Sirma Solutions

Senior Graphic Designer, Photographer

March 2001 – February 2018

As a Senior Graphic Designer in a large software company, I was responsible for all kinds of graphic materials from brand design to application layout for the company's and client's products and brands. I was involved in designing from the very beginning of most of the projects. Part of my job was to supervise external contractors. I was the leader of an outsourcing team for an image-processing application alongside the ongoing print and web projects.

You can find some of the projects I've made for Sirma Solutions in Design page.

Globetrotter Magazine

Freelance Photographer

July 2008 – March 2009

I created a few photo-stories for the local chapters of the magazine working with heavy lorries and earthmoving machinery and their drivers and owners. The shooting locations were across the country, at the industrial and building environment. You can see examples of my work here.

M3 Communications Group, Inc.

Web Designer

June 2000 – February 2001

I started as a junior web designer, and I learned a lot about HTML and CSS by working on several websites in-house and external projects.

Iktus Print

Post Print Operator

July 1999 – October 1999

That was my first opportunity to practice everything I learned at school. Iktus Print was a small print house producing everything from business cards to flyers, posters and even books. I was responsible for after-print finishing, but I also passed training in prepress and everything related to the production process.

PROFICIENCY

Skills

Interests

EDUCATION

2015

Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA), Photography

New Bulgarian University, Sofia, Bulgaria

I have chosen the photography subject to widening my interests in visual arts. I took a four-year program covering classic techniques and modern visions. For my graduation, I created a series of photographs called Origami Transformation, and a thesis with the topic - "The road from a snapshot to photography, a discussion about art in a photographic image".

1999

Performer Artist, Advertising Graphic

National School of Arts “Dimitar Dobrovitch”, Sliven, Bulgaria

I received an innovative academic education with the main subject of Graphic design, including branding, poster, typography, multimedia and more, combined with classic art studies, such as drawing, painting, art history. I graduated with a set of projects: brand design, different posters, fonts design, post stamps series, impossible object and multimedia clip, achieving excellent results.

THE OTHERS ABOUT ME

Luke Buckmaster

Director, Co-Founder - Doughboys Stone Baked Pizza™

Milena is a exceptionally talented individual with a true passion for photography, graphic design and anything else creative!

I worked closely with her for more than 2 years, in which she was always a great asset to the team and company, always exceeding customers expectations.

It was a pleasure working with Milena and I hope to work with her again in the future. Read more
Mark Davenport

Commercial Director - Barrel & Stone

Milena’s work was always delivered on time, to great affect and although she was very happy to work to instruction, Milena would also put across her point of view in a calm and pragmatic way. She is a very personable and very hard working individual and I am very happy to provide her a reference. Milena’s role also encompassed the creation of content using her fantastic photography and video editing skills, which was of considerable commercial benefit.
Tsvetan Alexiev

CEO at Sirma Group Holding

I had the pleasure of working with Milena for 15 years. She is a very supportive and creative professional designer easy-to-work-with. Her inspired view on the company’s challenges brought a number of successful projects in Sirma. She is visually minded and knows how to mix function with aesthetics, making each project special. Read more
Maya Paskaleva

Business Analyst at Sirma Solutions

Milena is one of the most experienced and efficient graphic designers with whom I worked. Her competence, experience and brilliant ideas are essential to the success of projects related to the graphical user interface – web portals, search engines of information systems for our clients. Read more
Stefan Kiryakov

Head of Marketing at Sirma Solutions

I was working with Milena directly while she was part of my marketing team at Sirma Solutions Jsc. I have to say she was very creative and great member of the team, but what I liked most about her was her passion for getting the job done in the best way from multiple perspectives - but design and UX. I would recommend Milena to anyone looking for a design and UI expert.
Chavdar Dimitrov

Chief Operating Officer, Executive Director at Sirma Solutions

As her supervisor I can truly recommend Milena as an outstanding employee, who can be relied to finish every hard task. In all the years that I worked with her, she proved as a designer with broad skills. She has a good character, which makes it a great colleague you want to have next to you.

KEEP IN TOUCH WITH ME

All images on this website are intellectual property. Please respect this. You can purchase some of them from the following image banks, or contact me to discuss it.

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Milena Ugrinova