Tjarks & Tjarks - Art Director
2023 - present
Enhancing branding strategies for Albertsons and its signature brands - Signature Select, O Organics, and Waterfront Bistro. Conceptualizing captivating packaging designs through food photography.
I spearhead weekly studio photoshoot sessions, crafting distinctive imagery showcasing various grocery items and recipe inspirations, enriching packaging labels spanning meat, seafood, vegetables, frozen meals, and more.
I oversee end-to-end production processes, from pre-planning to post-production, orchestrating seamless collaboration among project managers, photographers, stylists, and editors to ensure project success and alignment with brand aesthetics.
I develop comprehensive creative directives, encompassing detailed guidelines on visual aesthetics, print standards, prop selection, recipe formulation, and ingredient presentation, driving strategic alignment and ensuring consistent brand representation.
Amazon - Art Director
Amazon.com/Fresh
2020 - 2023
Design specialist producing compelling design concepts, defining brand standards, and stylistic guidelines for Amazon's Grocery Brands.
Developed style guides and SOPS for brand Photography, ensuring visual consistency for all Amazon Fresh creative.
Directed weekly photoshoots resulting in 3,000 unique grocery and recipe-inspired images used for in-store creative, weekly circulars, digital campaigns, and event marketing.
Managed the pre & post-production of photoshoots. Collaborating with project managers, photographers, stylists, and models to create the desired visual aesthetic and brand representation for all imagery.
Lead global holiday campaigns, supporting Spain, Italy, France, and German and US markets.
Created brand style guides and master templates, for use across digital, social, and print channels.
Reviewed work of production designers, ensuring high design bar and proper style guide usage.
Was key stakeholder in project kick-offs to advocate on behalf of the design team, set project parameters, goals and discuss limitations.
Amazon - Visual Designer
amaon.com/wfm
2019-2020
As the lead Visual Designer, I curated holiday and event style guides for consistent brand storytelling and designed groundbreaking landing pages merging editorial and shopping content for Whole Foods.
Led the design and development of holidays & event style guides, ensuring consistent brand experience, styling, and narrative across all touchpoints.
Designed specialty landing pages for holidays such as Thanksgiving and Christmas, that combined editorial and shoppable content on one page. These pages broke Amazons traditional wireframes, providing customers with helpful content such as a turkey serving calculator, holiday cookie recipes based on basket content and wine pairing advice.
Oversaw creative development for Whole Foods Prime Day. Presenting concepts to Amazon VP's for approval, developing placement templates to share with production designers and acting as approver for all creative.
L’Oreal - Clarisonic - Visual Designer
Clarisonic.com
2017-2019
Visual designer producing large-scale, high-impact deliverables for digital and social channels.
Concepted and developed stylistic guidelines, wrote art direction for photoshoots and delivered high-quality designs that inspired brand loyalty, and supported acquisition, and retention initiatives for the Clarisonic brand.
Art directed photoshoots for product launches, social content, and evergreen brand photography.
Created launch materials for product releases and events as well as style guides for seasonal campaigns, ensuring thoughtful creative alignment across channels.
Designed and executed various print and digital materials, including landing page heroes, emails, paid advertising, social posts, PR FAQs, and in-store signs.
Managed multiple projects independently, from concept to completion, delivering designs that were strategic, customer-focused,
and intuitive for customers.Utilized strong communication skills to effectively understand and translate creative brief requirements into outstanding design assets.
Worked in tandem with the social team to define the look and feel for social channels. Creating customer-centric content that supported prestige
and evergreen business initiatives, increasing total audience and engagement by 15%.
Paula's Choice - Visual Designer (contract)
Paulaschoice.com
4 month contract, 2017
Produced designs from concept to completion for web, mobile, social, email, print, packaging, editorial, etc.
Presented and developed creative concepts for monthly promotions, product launches, campaigns and branding presentations
Streamlined kick-off processes to increase productivity and quality of executions
Amazon - Visual Designer
Amazon.com & Amazon.ca
4 month contract, 2016
Presented graphics to design, marketing and business stakeholders for review and feedback
Adhered to Amazon.com style guide and category branding guides to ensure consistent look and feel for graphics
Created international ad campaigns for Amazon.ca during Q4 for Black Friday, Holiday and New Year promotions
Used marketing and business requirements to create compelling designs for onsite, mobile and tablet interfaces
Walgreens - Production Artist / Photo Editor
Walgreens, Drugstore & Beauty.com
2015-2016
Processed images using Photoshop to resize, crop, balance color, adjust levels & remove shadows
Oversaw product photography of designer brands such as LeSportsac, Redken and Neutrogena when the Lead Photographer was unavailable
Successfully published 700-1000 images a week, including color swatches, using company wide content management program
Worked with IT to re-organized 100k+ images in Walgreens library in 3 week
Collaborated with the creative team by supplying designers with high quality images to be used on promotional collateral
Coordinated between project managers, upper management and photo studio to implement brand and technical changes on websites
Trained new photo editors and enforced photo studio standards and requirements
Freelance - Graphic Designer
Misc
2014
Tela Arts Resource: Vector editing and Graphic Design for window clings
Roadmap Solutions: Branding & Identity creation
Kush Creative Group: Print marketing, and branding creation
Misc: Event and Wedding Invitations, Stationary, Web Design, Photography and Photo Editing
Party Storm, Co - Graphic Designer
PartyStorm.com
2014-2015
Created branding for Party Storm Co, including logo, business cards, stationary, web banners and marketing collateral
Developed new merchandise for all E-Commerce stores which included apparel, accessories, games and gifts
Successfully processed and edited all images for use on product pages
Researched competitors and brand trends to optimize promotional mixes and improve social media effectiveness
Kate Alkarni Gallery - Intern
Gallery at Seattle Design center
2 month internship, 2014
Prepared gallery space for upcoming exhibits and shows
Unpacked and installed artwork
Adjusted lighting
Prepared labels, artists’ exhibition cards, price lists and signage
Dismantled, packed and returned unsold exhibition pieces
Maintained galleries cleanliness and organization
Sarken Nutrition - Graphic Designer
Supplement manufacturer
2012-2014
Oversaw product photography, brand campaigns & corporate development for the launch of Sarken Nutrition’s new brand, Herbal Goodness
Enforced FDA compliance guidelines and accompanying Standard Operating Procedures for all nutritional supplement labels and packaging
Maintained vendor relationships with printers, suppliers and clients, to maximize efficiency, ensure quality and timely project completion
Coordinated social media campaign through maintaining a social media presence, creating web collateral and targeting desired demographic
Tempe12 - Photo Editor and Social Media marketing Intern
Tempe12.com
5 month internship, 2012
Responsible for classifying and rating thousands of photographs using Adobe Lightroom, maintaining photography library though taxonomy system, accurate computer file labeling, photo editing, color correcting and maintaining social media presence
Published and authored web and social media photo galleries to maintain company websites and enhance web presence
Trained with well-known industry professionals during photo shoots while over seeing contracts paper work and models
Education
Graduated May 2013
Arizona State University - B.S. Communications and media