“Lauren is a stellar teammate. I partnered with her closely on a wide range of consumer-facing products where I witnessed her navigate deep, technical complexities on both the front and backends. She brings thoughtful questions and a collaborative spirit to her conversations. She proactively builds strong relationships with stakeholders to understand technical constraints early on and leverages data to build smart, cost-savings solutions. With her leadership, we successfully drove buy-in for content-first designs that were rooted in research, solved business problems, and met or exceeded user needs.

To put it simply, she just has *it* – the kind of gusto, curiosity, and thoughtfulness that makes a great design partner and propels a product team forward. I hope I get to work with her again, if I’m lucky!”

“Lauren is one of the best designers I’ve had the pleasure of working with. She truly embodies one of the most important roles a designer can bring and that is to always be the voice of the user. She is dedicated to understanding the user we build for and is brilliant in finding solutions that honor that perspective, while also working within any product or technical constraints. Lauren is also equally dedicated to her team, and Returnly would not have been as successful without her over the years. Any team would be lucky to have Lauren on their side when it comes to building the next generation of products.”

“Any future manager, collaborator, or friend of Lauren’s has no idea how fortunate they are about to be. She is thoughtful, eager to learn, receptive to constructive critique, and as her previous design lead at Media Cause I never once had to worry about her ability to execute her work.

For every meeting she took extensive notes, for every design pitch her visual direction was always chosen, and for every project curve-ball Lauren was armed with apt questions to push the team in the right direction. I would work with her a thousand times over again and again. Whether you like it or not, Lauren comes as a package though, because her dog Tucker will undoubtedly always be by her side. But if you don’t fall in love Tucker, you’re crazy, and if you don’t fall in love with working with Lauren... you’re even crazier.”

“I was fortunate to have many opportunities to collaborate with Lauren on design projects during our 2 years as colleagues at Media Cause. Her knowledge of a breadth of graphic design tools and elements lent itself to many creative projects for my clients, including website design, social media graphics, newsletter layouts, and much more. Lauren’s attention to detail and creative nature allowed the client management team the flexibility to focus overall strategy and messaging. She has proven to be an asset in taking ideas and bringing them to life visually — both on larger projects as well as quickly and effectively during tight turnarounds. Lauren would be an excellent asset to any organization looking to expand their creative team.”

“Lauren wore many hats at Mahlum and did a great job at all that she touched. I worked most closely with her in the production of various reports and presentation materials. She acted as our in-house graphic designer and created all requested vector-graphics including graphic schedules, vector icons, presentation boards and info-graphics. She also assisted in marketing proposals regarding layout and production. She helped with photograph selection, touch-up, in-house printing and binding. She worked many times under multiple deadlines and projects requiring quick turn-around. She did this all while being cool, calm and collected. It was a real pleasure to work with Lauren. I was sorry to see her go!”

“Lauren is a tenacious and dedicated student who won’t just settle for “good enough.” I have seen her tackle design problems from multiple angles with an earnest desire to learn and figure things out.

Lauren was inquisitive and hard working in my class, and even after the course ended, she continued to work on her assignment, pushing it to the next level. I admire that she reached out to me to gain professional feedback—I think that is an excellent quality that will take her far in her career. Keep Lauren on your radar, she is destined to do great things!”

“Lauren was the lead for the Consumer User Experience and is one of the most talented designers I’ve worked with. She consistently brought up best practices through user research, data backed reasoning, and sharing her perspective while valuing others’ input.

We worked on many consumer and technical fintech projects together and she was able to balance the ideal design with speed to market. Lauren always strived to have designs for us to build towards the long term vision even if they could not be executed within the scope of the project. She was able to clearly communicate complex problems to all different types of cross functional stakeholders. In addition to her primary duties, she mentored junior designers and new team members to help improve their craft. Overall, I would highly recommend Lauren to any team as she’s great to work with both personally and professionally.”

“When Lauren joined our Creative Services team at Media Cause, she was making the transition to web design – a challenge she threw herself into 100% and with impressive results. She was able to begin contributing immediately, and her combo of high intuition and stellar communication skills enabled her to self-teach as well as use her judgement to discern when to tag others for support. She takes critiques for what they are: opportunities to learn and grow. It was a pleasure to watch her approach evolve from project to project. Lauren has a rare blend of independence and team-spiritedness; I consider her a versatile designer and highly compatible culture-fit due to these qualities.

In addition to her professional acumen, she’s a delight to work with. Smart, funny, and kind. I’d relish the opportunity to hire her again, and would recommend her very highly to anyone looking for a skilled digital designer.”

“Lauren is an exceptionally talented, creative and thoughtful designer with excellent communication skills and a strong work ethic. She picks up new skills on the fly, takes design feedback in stride and demonstrates an invaluable commitment to professional growth that’s always reflected in her work. She not only has excellent design taste, but a positive attitude that makes her a great team player and an equally effective independent contributor. I really enjoyed working with Lauren at Media Cause and would highly recommend her for any design role in the future.”

“Bright, funny, insightful, Lauren always comes up with fresh ideas and fun solutions to creative challenges. She’s willing to continue “going back to the well” for more solutions when the project calls for it. Don’t be surprised if her questions or deep, thoughtful analysis nails you against the wall. She may be small, but she packs a big creative punch!”

“Lauren Vrouvas was my student on two occasions in 2013 & 2014. In both cases she impressed me with two qualities: design talent and the drive to learn. Her drive stood out, because was constantly pushing herself to learn more and improve her skills. She took criticism extremely well, and her work evolved greatly in a short period of time. This was also reflected in her designs. In addition to solo assignments, we did a lot of projects in groups during class time. She was well respected and liked by her peers. She was the perfect team member, contributing and listening. The group projects she was involved with were stronger for her involvement.”