Inside DELTA: 5 Questions with Brenda Vienrich

Multimedia Web Designer Brenda Vienrich has embraced her time at DELTA upon joining the team in January of 2021. She’s found ways to share her creativity in the work she does to enhance the NC State digital education learning community.

Born in Lima, Peru, Vienrich immigrated to the United States with her family at three years old. They moved to New Jersey and then relocated to Kernersville, North Carolina, where she grew up. 

“My family and I still go back to Peru to visit my abuelita (grandma) and other relatives who live in the rainforest in the Iscozacín area (many of the family members on my mom’s side are cattle ranchers and farmers who work in agriculture and live off the land), as well as family members who live in the capital, Lima,” she shares.

She attended The University of North Carolina at Greensboro where she graduated with her Bachelors of Fine Arts in Design. After college, Vienrich went on to freelance and contract design for a variety of business-to-business and business-to-customer clients throughout her career. Her bachelor’s degree, as well as course certifications from Wake Tech, has led her to design for a multitude of clients, including Goodwill Industries of Eastern North Carolina.

At Goodwill Industries, Vienrich served as an in-house digital and multimedia designer for five years where she worked with web design, illustration and creating animations for Goodwill’s educational website. “I liked designing for a company that promoted online educational learning which is what brought me to DELTA,” she says. “The focus on online distance learning and how DELTA gives back to the community with DELTA grants allowing instructors to better their course material through online and interactive learning platforms is what appealed to me for this role.”

How would you describe your position to someone unfamiliar with DELTA?

Vienrich’s job focuses on updating the DELTA WordPress website, as well as providing web and graphic design work for projects related to DELTA Grants, instructional media and other marketing initiatives. She helps manage the UI on the DELTA WordPress website through HTML and CSS. She also sits on the DELTAweb committee.

She uses her role to promote digital education projects and the website by designing graphics for DELTA’s social media accounts and news articles.

What has been your favorite project you’ve worked on?

Vienrich has been providing the digital education marketing initiatives with graphics focused on promoting inclusivity and diversity for social media content.

“Recently, I’ve been trying to come up with illustration ideas for the social media posts that promote NC State online programs. I’ve been working with the MCOMM team to try to come up with characters that can represent the NC State student body in a more inclusive way. We are trying to be more representative of people from diverse cultures and different perspectives and how to include gender-fluid characters through illustration,” she says.

What is the most challenging aspect of your job?

As the COVID-19 pandemic caused work at DELTA to be at a distance within the past year, Vienrich began her position remotely this January. In addition to overcoming the difficulties of understanding a new job while working from home, she braved joining the DELTA community without having a previous history of knowing her colleagues in person.

“Though that has been a bit of a challenge, I’m looking forward to spending some time in the office starting in July and continuing to build relationships with colleagues,” she says.

What do you enjoy most about working at DELTA?

DELTA’s community of faculty and staff is accepting of people from all backgrounds and walks of life. Vienrich has found her colleagues to be enthusiastic about uniqueness among the team. 

“DELTA’s department allows people to be themselves and me being someone that’s coming from working at a lot of different places, you can’t always find that in a job,” she says. “That’s something that I am grateful for and enjoying. People allow you to have a sense of individuality and that’s not always present at a lot of workplaces.”

She’s been able to explore her creativity in projects at DELTA, giving her an opportunity to express her voice.

What do you like to do in your spare time outside of work?

Vienrich is an illustrator and loves to work with others in the industry whenever she gets the chance. Prior to the pandemic, she participated in the North Carolina Museum of Art’s Monster Drawing Rally where she displayed her art and hopes to be involved again. Her art focuses on intersection in balancing cultures and she often expresses this idea through painting.

“I’m currently painting a series of barn quilts based on cross-cultural identities (Peru and growing up in the United States),” she says.

When she’s not working on her art, Vienrich enjoys going on hikes with her fiancé and dog, Diego, near the Eno in Durham or in Asheville where they enjoy tasting craft beers.

Vienrich continues to provide value to DELTA through her dedication to creative work.