Maria Guerriero

Maria started her creative life at an early age, drawing pictures and writing poetry from grade school through undergraduate school. In 1998, she took a class called “Desktop Publishing.” (Remember QuarkXPress, y’all?) She was immediately hooked. Words and art combined! Give her more! As a designer, she has worked in a myriad of environments, from a small boutique design firm to a nonprofit, higher education, and an international digital advertising agency.

Throughout her work life, Maria was always running freelance projects on the side and dreaming about her own business. In 2010, she made the leap to begin working for herself as a freelancer and officially launched Germinate Creative in 2013.

As someone who loves to dig right in and get her hands dirty, Maria loves spending time outdoors biking and gardening. She does her best to keep the wacky world of entrepreneurship, deadlines, and personal life in balance by getting to yoga, being as silly as possible, and eating. A lot. Seriously, let’s go to lunch. In work, as in life, she is driven by joy, creativity, and a sense of purpose. She is literally driven by a Surly Long Haul Trucker, which has probably clocked 20,000 miles in seven years.

Maria happily lives in Portland, Oregon, with Tim, her partner in creativity and snow sports, and Nina, their constantly boisterous and chatty kiddo.