Consuelo Roybal

A Graphic Designer with her Head in the Cloud

By Chelsé Craig

Consuelo Ruybal (BA 92) considers herself lucky to have been working the design industry since the early 90s after graduating from Eastern with her degree in visual and graphic design. She currently works for Pitney Bowes, the 95-year-old paper-mailing company that now specializes in Cloud Commerce and hasbecome a vital part of the digital ecosystem.

Based out of New York, Consuelo is responsible for making sure the company’s custom-built, internal software infrastructure works to the best of its ability, so that it can enable Twitter to assign locations, allowed EBay’s customers to buy and sell goods, and more.

She has worked in visual and graphic design, and now as a user-experience (UX) designer and/or creative consultant for company giants such as Elle magazine, Facebook, Microsoft, Verizon, IBM and others.

Consuelo Ruybal graduated from ENMU with a Bachelor of Arts in visual and graphic design.

Photo by Meg Allen

Consuelo has received several awards on various projects, including Cannes LionsInternational Advertising Festival’s Cyber Silver, Titanium, and Integrated Grand Prix awards for her work as a user experience strategist and designer on a Bing.com project called DECODE Jay-Z.

“It’s a funny story on how I was signed on,” she said. “I had just sent out a message to my network saying that I was available and ready for work. A few hours later, I received a phone call requesting my attendance for a 10 a.m. meeting the next day. I had to be willing to accept the position without knowing anything about the project, and the words ‘high-profile’ and ‘very exciting’ were thrown around.”

“Professional designers add value to their work by removing themselves from their designs,” she said. “I add value by removing myself and making sure I listen to my customers. My best designs are always in the style of the end client.”

Consuelo signed non-disclosure agreement contracts and spent months creating a conceptual model that would release every page of Jay-Z’s autobiography out in the real world and have fans reassemble those pages online in the interactive game. She also spent time writing the game logic and designing the user experience without talking about it to anyone.

“My friends, however, commented that I suddenly knew a lot more about hip-hop than ever before,” she quipped.

Consuelo currently lives in New York and was recently photographed for her street style.

Photo by Curtis Xin Pan, Instagram @curtispan

Consuelo also co-founded RightRides for Women’s Safety, a nonprofit organization that offers rides from trained volunteers throughout high-risk areas in New York City. The company was created in order to build safer communities by ending gender-based harassment and sexual assault through direct services, intervention, safety education and policy advocacy.

“It was a passion-project that I helped run while working a full-time corporate job and it was successful in helping people get home safe late at night. It received a lot of recognition and awards. I’m very proud of it.”