About Us
Cool Grafix is the body of freelance work of designer, programmer, and interactive manager Brad Kelley and his associates. For nearly 15 years Brad has brought creative interactive and print solutions to clients in the Kansas City and national markets. His diverse background in digital pre-press, art direction, and interactive development has fostered corporate and consumer web sites, interactive games, online training materials, and multimedia projects in addition to print design, book covers, interior layouts, and traditional business systems and collateral materials.
Background
Serving as Catalog Production Supervisor and Art Director at CGI, a computer service bureau, Brad designed catalogs, served as liaison to clients and vendors, and supervised pre-press operations. As Creative Director for Thunder Castle Games he designed its corporate identity and communications, product graphics, and worked directly with vendors. Brad first joined the advertising agency world at MRA (now known as Weyforth-Haas Marketing) in their Print Production Department. Later, in their Interactive Group, he specialized in user interfaces for corporate e-commerce web sites, interactive games, online training materials, and CD-ROMs. Brad joined the team at Fleishman-Hillard, providing a variety of services including video production, web interface design, back-end development, relational database design, and content management. Brad went solo after Fleishman, working exclusively on a per-project basis, and focused on providing interactive design and management services to a variety of engaging clients, both national and local. Years later Brad joined one of these clients, Widick Marketing, full-time as their Interactive Manager; in this role he managed a stable of freelancers and in-house talent to produce corporate websites and online applications.
Over the years Brad has served on the board of directors for both AD2 (the under-thirty division of The Advertising Club of Kansas City) and The Freelance Exchange of Kansas City and has donated or discounted his services for a number charitable causes. When not working he enjoys raising two adorable children with his wife, Sheri.
