Courtney Parks
Visual Design, Animation, Neurodesign, Storytelling
I’m a visual designer, animator, and storyteller with over 15+ years of experience leading creative teams, building design pipelines, and crafting joyful, user-centered experiences. I’ve guided the visual direction of large-scale educational products and managed cross-functional teams. My design work specializes in clarity, accessibility, and charm. I believe that thoughtful design can make even the most complex ideas feel welcoming.
Mind Research Institute, remote
Sr. Visual Designer, Layout
September 2024 - October 2025
Utilized neurodesign principles to improve engagement and reduce cognitive load, leading to sustained resiliency during lessons in classrooms.
Drove the visual direction and production of InsightMath: Playbook, a core component included with the InsightMath curriculum.
Designed style guides and wrote key documentation.
Researched and implemented accessibility requirements for printed media.
Using user experience data, fine-tuned the visual direction to better meet the needs of students and teachers.
Using Adobe Illustrator, served as head layout editor for over 1,000 uniquely designed activity pages, with a focus on mathematical clarity, storytelling, and style consistency within print volumes.
Using Adobe InDesign, reviewed and edited answer keys and related components.
Managed an outsource team as well as oversaw our in-house Playbook team.
Spearheaded the implementation of a project management system based off of Kanban and Scrum methodologies in order to better streamline communication with other departments, leading to a reduction in revision cycles and clarity in assignment requirements and tracking.
Acted as steward to this system, which included…
Using Trello to track deliverables from concept to completion,
Clear communication with the Curriculum Writers’ department.
Established a consistent file structure and organization system for use by the design team.
Visual Artist, Layout
April 2021 - September 2024
Worked closely with curriculum developers and writers to design hundreds of activity book pages with a focus on layout and mathematical clarity.
Created training materials for teammates, which included:
Designing for education,
Neurodesign principles,
And a series of fun, interactive activity pages teaching how to design for InsightMath: Playbook, which led to improved retention of style rules and increased confidence for new teammates.
Played a crucial role in the story development of InsightMath’s cast of student characters.
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Google Slides, Adobe Illustrator, adobe InDesign, and Trello.
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Communication: I am known for my transparent, honest approach in conversations about scope and capacity. I ask questions when I need clarification. I’m always available to talk through feedback with an artist.
Leadership: My main focus wasn’t on InsightMath. It was on my team. For InsightMath to succeed, each person on my team needed resources, clear guidance, and opportunities to grow. I helped my team identify their strengths and carefully assessed challenges before delegating them to those who could use the growth.
Thinking on my feet: I’m quick to get the ball rolling on solutions. I credit my time as a game master for D&D — one’s ability to improv and problem solve on the fly is integral to that hobby!
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I hope it’s not cheating to have two answers for this!
First, I deeply enjoyed creating work that would have an impact in schools. It is a privilege to craft immersive, empowering tools for students to take ownership of their learning.
But my second answer is just as true: I enjoyed working with my team. Just as I designed to build confidence in kids, I focused on building that same confidence in my colleagues. Each one of them is brilliant, and I am blessed to have worked on such an incredible project with them.
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Mentioned in this wall of bullet points is my effort toward training materials, and making them fun and engaging.
Look, we’re making colorful, cozy math activity pages meant to encourage learning and curiosity. So I thought, “Why can’t our training materials be like that, too?”
These were tested on our outsource team, and you could see the glow from the feedback we received from miles away!
These materials shaved training time from 3 months to 3 weeks.
Mind Research Institute, remote
2D Animator and Visual Designer
March 2018 - July 2020
Redesigned and animated various states for ST Math’s star character, JiJi.
Crafted guides for future character designs, currently in use within the company.
Refreshed the look and feel of hundreds of ST Math games, as well as the platform’s UI.
Participated in research and design of new characters and background elements, as well as redesigned 30+ old favorites.
Animated dozens of beloved side characters and delightful critters using Adobe Animate.
Built mockups to communicate the placement and appearance of various puzzle elements for use by game designers and engineers.
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I worked as a contractor with the ST Math team for two and a half years, where we did a total overhaul of the UI, characters, and hundreds of games.
Small Planet Digital, remote
Animator, Spine2D
March 2016 - September 2018
Animated several Disney characters using Esoteric Spine2D for the iOS game, Disney Princess Charmed Adventures.
Adapted existing artwork for use in Spine2D’s puppet building system, as well as created new assets to supplement additional poses.
Created multiple rigs within Spine2D for characters and tools.
Worked closely with engineers to build a comprehensive animation workflow.
Playforge Games/Saban Brands, San Francisco
Sr. Animator
June 2012 - November 2013
Animated several Digimon characters using Esoteric Spine2D for an unreleased RPG.
Used Adobe Animate to bring characters to life in games such as Zombie Farm 2, Zombie Farm Battles, and Eat, Eat, Hooray!
Designed and animated various UI and special effects for Zombie Farm 2, Zombie Farm Battles, and Eat, Eat, Hooray!
Established the Animation style for Zombie Farm Battles as well as an unreleased title.
Created animation style guides other documentation.
Oversaw a 3rd party team of animators used for outsourced projects.
OTHER EXPERIENCE
Pennypop, San Francisco — 2D Character Animator
August 2015 - October 2015
Rivet Games, San Francisco — 2D Animator, Game Artist
February 2011 - February 2012
Metamoki, Inc, San Francisco — FX/ 2D Character Animator
June 2010- February 2011
Sudoscape LLC, San Francisco — FX Animator
March 2010 - July 2010
Thebroth, San Francisco — 2D Animator
August 2009 - November 2009
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During my time in game animation, I used primarily Spine2D and Adobe Animate.
Spine2D is a wonderful, versatile animation tool that grows by leaps and bounds every year. If you take a look at my animation portfolio, you can see evidence of this: as the program grows, so too does the detail in my work!