Kelli Upshur (f.k.a. Kelli Townsend) is an art director, designer, artist, and animal lover based out of Los Angeles, CA, but born and raised in the rural parts of Pittsburgh, PA.*
*yes, I’m the literal definition of “just a small town girl”
Clients:
E! (The Royals, The Arrangement, Keeping Up With The Kardashians, Total Divas, Total Bellas, WAGS, I Am Cait, Stewarts & Hamiltons), TBS (Wrecked), Esquire Network, Dreamworks (Kung Fu Panda 3), Mattel (DC Super Hero Girls), L’Oreal (Makeup.com), Ole Smoky Moonshine, Toyota, Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar, Weight Watchers, NFL, NHL, NCAA, MLB.
ICYMI:
Growing up, Kelli loved to draw, illustrate, paint, and craft. She grew up on Disney movies (duh), and fell in love with the art and beauty of the 1995 animated film Pocahontas. She knew, from that moment on, that she wanted to become an artist.
At 13, Kelli found her love for web and graphic design. She taught herself HTML and CSS from reading source code pages of Geocities and Livejournal sites. She took part in making fancy MySpace pages for scene queens (i.e. Jac Vanek), and eventually got into apparel design.
In high school, Kelli designed t-shirts for Andrew McMahon, lead singer of Something Corporate/Jack’s Mannequin/Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness, during his battle with leukemia. All proceeds went to the Pediatric Cancer Research Foundation. With the help of her mom, she shipped t-shirts out to fans from all over the world. The shirts also landed in the Jack’s Mannequin merchandise store.
Kelli attended and graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a Bachelors of Arts in Studio Art, an emphasis in Design, and a Digital Media certificate. She learned some super cool techniques in printmaking (screenprinting, intaglio), painting, drawing, sculpture, and art history and architecture.
To this day, Kelli loves to learn and expand her skills. Kelli’s currently interests are her strong love for typography, brush lettering, macrame, weaving, and video production, and everything design (not in that order).