Meet our Team

Meet the cool kids.

Founders and principles Cheri Larsh-Arellano and Mark Arellano have teamed up with a diverse group of wacky thinkers, supremely sexy creative types, code junkies, super sound guys, digital dynamos, fab photographers, and provocative penmen to provide you with green, creative services that are second-to-none. Click on photos to read bios.

Cheri Larsh Arellano

As the founder of Conscious Creative, Cheri Larsh Arellano serves as its creative director, web architect and photographer. After several years as a professional photographer in Miami, she moved to Los Angeles where she attended UCLA for graphic design while working as a freelance designer, mostly on entertainment and corporate design. She has been a graphic designer for over seven years and a photographer for over a decade, and has worked for and with such companies as Warner Bothers, DreamWorks, Universal, Disney and AT&T. Upon realizing that these corporate markets did not satisfy her soul, the idea for Conscious was born. In 2001, Cheri moved to the Bay Area and started Conscious Creative. She is committed to increasing awareness around sustainable business practices, saving trees and is an avid animal lover.

Mark Arellano

A San Francisco resident and Bay Area native who has been involved for over half a decade with all aspects of the film and video industry, Mark Arellano manages the motion picture production as well as the copywriting and copy editing for Conscious. Upon receiving his BA from UC Davis in 1997, Mark headed to Hollywood, where he was involved in production for NBC, festival coordination for the Slamdance Film Festival, and production and development for Miramax Films. Mark’s recent editing credits include Jornalero, a documentary selected by HBO’s Frame By Frame documentary film series and His Only Son, a film selected for the Oakland Film Festival. Recent projects include producing and directing a regionally broadcast television commercial, a DVD for a nationally-touring stage production, and a critically acclaimed vegetarian cooking show. You can view his personal film website at markarellano.com

Nova Brown

As a senior content strategist and copywriter, Nova has produced quality content for a wide variety of clients, assisting everyone from techies to foodies. For over ten years, she has developed strategic website content, promotional print copy, collateral systems, blogs, white papers, presentations, speeches and more for the likes of TiVo, Kinko’s, Gallo Winery, Williams Sonoma, TuttiFoodie, Olivia Travel and Visa, among many clients and ad agencies. With a degree in Russian studies, Nova spent three years in St. Petersburg teaching English and composition and managing a restaurant before moving back home to the Bay Area to join the creative world. In the last two years, this child of Bay Area hippies chose to put her marketing powers to good use through helping companies that are working to make a difference in the world. Nova is dedicated to supporting and building local communities around art, writing, music, and food.

Volker Rathke

In his previous work, Volker built and maintained international websites and applications for companies such as Macromedia and TTZ. Through his work he became more interested in the creative aspects and returned to school to study graphic design. Conscious Creative now offers him an exciting environment to apply his experience and to round out his graphic and web design education. Volker believes in a global community that is about social justice, ecological responsibility and peace. He values his sensitive approach to preserving the world around him and is excited to include these ideals in his vocation. Volker's inquisitiveness often takes him on short adventures discovering hidden gems of his surroundings and creative inspiration to look forward to.

Cristin Shea

Cristin comes to Conscious Creative with over eleven years of project management experience. She recently coordinated over 5600 children for the Kids’ Chalk Art Project in Alameda, which broke the Guinness record for the world’s largest chalk drawing. This life-enriching experience and the diverse set of skills she gained is what led her to more meaningful projects and, eventually, Conscious Creative. Cristin received her education at San Francisco State University in Fashion Design and Merchandising. Upon graduating, she moved to Los Angeles and worked in wardrobe on several independent music videos, an MTV pilot, and designed for Gregg Araki’s movie, ‘Splendor’. After her time in Los Angeles, she moved back to the Bay Area and for ten years managed clients such as Nike, HP, Adobe and McAfee at a number of distinguished marketing firms. For six years, she also ran her own clothing design company.  Currently, she enjoys teaching yoga in Alameda, where she lives with her family. The extraordinary capacity of Bay Area residents to embrace the changing world and want to make a global difference is why she has chosen this singular and beautiful place to call home.

Darcel Walker

As the audio guru for Conscious Creative, Darcel ensures top quality audio on all of our film and video projects. As an active musician, he has been playing bass around the Bay Area music scene for the past twenty years. Darcel studied at San Francisco’s prestigious California Recording Insitute, where he specialized in audio engineering. With over eight hundred hours of studio session work under his belt, he has engineered audio for the majority of the projects in which he has participated. He is also a devoted animal-rights supporter, and has worked tirelessly to ensure the well-being of our animals and the planet on which we live.

Gabe Scelta

Gabe Scelta was born in New York, NY and for the past five years has made the San Francisco Bay Area home. He began programming for the web at sixteen and went on to earn a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design from Boston University in 2002. Since then has been designing and coding for the web as well as illustrating and designing for printed media. He is skilled in XHTML compliant coding, CSS authoring, PHP integration, cross browser compatibility, various content management and e-commerce solutions, HTML email campaigning and is fluent in all design and development software, including the Adobe and Macromedia suites of applications. He’s an experienced project manager and marketer and is fully engaged in Web 2.0, SEO and social network strategies. He has managed and programmed a number of complex sites that integrate various information sources for clients such as Physicians for Human RIghts, the Department of Healthcare Policy at Harvard Medical School, The Long Now Foundation, Goodwill of San Francisco, the Northwest Portland Indian Health Board, Peace Action West, and AIDS Housing of Washington. He enjoys swimming, cooking, writing and painting.

Andrew Rado

Andrew’s been working as a graphic designer and web developer since 2002. He has spent time as an independent designer and has also worked as an employee for several design firms in the Bay Area. Larger scale clients include 24 Hour Fitness, The San Francisco Opera, Genentech and Visa, and he’s equally as enthusiastic about the work he’s done with small businesses and nonprofit organizations. Andrew designs for print and Web with an expert focus on clarity of message. He employs the latest interactive technology and a unique creative sensibility to distinguish businesses from their competitors. Andrew’s attention to the visually potent encourages him to paint and photograph when he’s away from the computer. He takes pride in being mindful of the issues of today’s world and doing what he can to help. Andy holds a B.F.A. in Communication Design from Kutztown University in Kutztown, Pennsylvania.