OVERVIEW
Nick Cobler is a seasoned creative hybrid with more than 24 years of experience working with Fortune 500 and mid-market companies, including Philips, Dick’s Sporting Goods, PNC Bank, and many others. Nick started his career as an interactive producer, building websites back in 1999 at the tail end of the Dot Com Boom before UX had even become a mainstream discipline. As a creative professional, Nick has witnessed and evolved with every change in the industry for nearly a quarter of a century. These days, THRIVE benefits from his tremendous depth of experience, which Nick uses to help influence both the firm’s and its clients’ visual identities, products, and services.
EXPERIENCE
After graduating with a degree in Design and Visual Communications from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, Nick worked his way up to be a Creative Director of Mullen Interactive for over a decade. Following Mullen, he took another Creative Director and Product Management position at SnapRetail, where he handled creative direction for all product-related things, including product marketing and software development. Afterward, Nick joined Buzzhoney as a Visual Design Director leading the creation, development, and deployment of interactive and content marketing projects. More recently, Nick has served as an Associate Creative Director at InnerWorkings, a Visual Designer at USTWO, and a UX/UI Designer at Soul Machines. He has also worked as a freelancer, offering his deep well of design skills and experience to clients. Now, he works as a Principal Visual Designer at THRIVE, where he revels in being a part of a multidisciplinary team.
EXTRAS
Nick constantly keeps a sketchbook on hand and frequently reads because of his belief in being a “perpetual student.” He loves going analog before transitioning to digital, something he says strengthens his ideating and concepting. Nick grew up reading glossy skateboarding and snowboarding zines, which inspired Nick and his friends to sketch out zines of their own. One of his other early influences was a book about Picasso his mother gave him. From a fairly young age, he was attracted to graphics and merging visuals and iconography; a passion that evolved as Nick moved further into the interactive side of design, involving screens and motion to improve products and experiences. With 40 years of angling experience under his belt, Nick is also an avid fly fisherman, past LL Bean casting instructor, and is a Board Member of Trout Unlimited.