Andrea Werner

Portfolio

Odds are, you arrived here through the portfolio URL on my resume or on a job application profile. Take a look around -- if you vibe with what I'm about, like what I have showcased, and wish to comment on anything or discuss how we might collaborate, please feel free to reach out to me through those channels or email me directly at andrea.p.werner@gmail.com.

My journey has taken me to a lot of places, and given me many years of skill-building and cross-industry experience in specialized customer service, manufacturing, healthcare, and remote digital roles. I've also been a caregiver, handyperson, and commissioned artist. I am a very visual and kinesthetic learner, and if I'm curious about something, I dive on in! Wherever I've been and wherever I go next, I am powerfully motivated by compassion and the drive to use my skills and work experience to make a positive difference.

I most recently joined the world of digital accessibility and web design in January 2025, through the LaunchIT Web Accessibility training program through CodeCraft Works and the Brevard Achievement Center. Through this, I earned my CPACC in May 2025 and my Trusted Tester for Web 508 Certification in June 2025. Afterward, I participated in an internship through SourceAmerica as part of their Summer 2025 cohort, in which I took a deep dive into document remediation with a focus on the Microsoft Office suite and PDF conversion and tag structure.

As someone who contends with (and is occasionally weirdly super-powered by) disability in the form of ADHD, the accessibility field holds a special place in my heart, especially when it comes to the cognitive side of accessibility -- widely considered to be one of the hardest to address. This is also why I broke my intro down into these expandable little bullets! I didn't want to stick you with a novel.

Buckle up friends, I have made two attempts at college and while I very boringly never partied at either of them, both of them were wild rides.

I attended the Art Institutes International Minneapolis for a bachelor of science in Media Arts and Animation. Upon enrollment, I entered a national scholarship contest and came in second place in Minnesota. I attended for a year and a half, making the most of my time there, though undiagnosed ADHD with no support system made for a vicious struggle. This was worsened when the school pulled some financial shenanigans, reneging on their promise of tuition lock-in, among other things. Myself and a handful of other students decided to trust our gut and cut our losses and leave. In the years since, the school was convicted of tax fraud and has since been shut down.

Freshly distressed over my experience with art school, I optimistically persisted onward. I pivoted into massage therapy with my eye on expanding into physical therapy at the Rasmussen College of Eden Prairie, MN. Though I still struggled with ADHD management, I excelled at the hands-on training aspect of my schooling and envisioned a future in which I could travel anywhere with these skills.

A few months into my associate's program, I was struck by a car on my way home from my part-time job. I was mostly unharmed save for my leg, and am totally fine these days, but back then it hurt to the point of distraction to stand for long periods of time. This killed massage therapy as a career choice at the time. It felt like the universe had brutally told me 'no', so I leaned into creative niches in my retail job, and as I recovered I eventually moved on to manufacturing and other career paths.

These days, I am not opposed to giving college another try, but third time really does need to be the charm!

Whether it's a document or web page, and whether it's a project I built myself or audited, I'm a firm believer in the notion that aesthetics and accessibility do not need to be mutually exclusive. In addition to building my skillset around document and web design, I am a lifelong artist in both traditional and digital painting and illustration; Web and document projects made during my LaunchIT training are showcased on this page and include original art, and I am in the process of building a dedicated art portfolio to help showcase the creativity I have to offer. All in all, I am here to make things functional, beautiful, and user-centered.

AI-generated imagery may appear in some my earlier classroom projects, as it was expedient at the time. Shortly after, I resolved to simply make my own art assets. I do value AI as a tool in supplementary learning, organization, and even experimentation with code; it helped me figure out some website functions that were not part of our training. But I feel AI must be used conscientiously, especially where the environment and human artists are concerned, and image/video generation has profound impacts against both of these. Consider this my promise to avoid using AI-generated art in any of my projects going forward.