These projects show case my experience in art directing, producing and designing catalogs for retail fashion brands. In the case of Nordstrom's catalog I worked in teams to produce a broad line catalog.
For The New Yorker I worked with offshore Japanese clients who provided look books for their mens and womens clothing lines. Provided with a theme, "Out of Africa" for the womens catalog and "The Spirit of British Values" for their men's catalog, I sourced the locations, cast the talent and created the story board for the catalog layout and design. All catalogs were produced with interpreters, on budget and on time.
Yohjii Yamamoto, the internationally renowned fashion designer's catalog was produced, styled and shot with the vision created with the truly American theme as a vehicle to showcase his bed and bath line. Shot on location with the acclaimed photographer Kurt Markus in a remote town in Nebraska on a working horse ranch. The "talent" were authentic Americans who lived and worked on the ranch and in the town. A rich once in a lifetime experience of East meets West as an art director, producer.
Hired on an annual basis to concept creative direction and art direct images with a team of designers, each year the challenge to maximize existing grids and assets were met.
The creative challenge was to tell the fabric story as well as the functionality of the product and clearly divide the catalog into easy to use categories for sales associates reference purposes.
I began my branding experience on a brand that became iconic for Levis Strauss & Co ready to wear men's clothing. I designed the original logo, hand "inked" over a weekend to meet the production deadline. The mens line took off and soon the women's line followed with success in national retail stores.
I developed the creative direction, brand look and feel for national advertising campaigns for Levi's Womenswear Dockers in such publications as Voque and Elle magazines that escalated their sales up 200% from earlier campaign efforts.
This logo stood the test of time, utilized for over a decade on product labeling and branding applications.
Catalog Cover Creative Presentation
Approach: Concept a creative direction for Filson’s catalog cover. In this presentation (9) comprehensive mock-ups for brand execution consideration.
Objective: To demonstrate a broad approach to illustrate the brand of Filson based on the main pillars provided by Filson Marketing and some anecdotal information shared from my portfolio meeting at Filson.
Main Branding Pillars provided:
1. American Made
2. Heritage-The Filson Story
3. Luxury Brand (not expensive, but rather as in the best quality); Filson is built to last.
4. Innovation - Filson was an innovator and will continue to innovate today.
The layouts presented are preliminary concepts and should not be viewed in a literal sense, except where specified in the following individual option descriptions.
These comprehensive mock-ups are designed to convey a voice and “coloration” for the brand and would be a beginning to defining the brand for catalog purposes. Each concept is intended to show an individual point-of-view option.
Option 1: Utilizes format, i.e. a retro style layout and fonts to stress brand pillars with simple photographic elements to communicate time, place (gold tone heritage photography style), and product detail.
Option 2: Utilizes eagle line art imagery/ old classic engraving to convey American made with contemporary on-figure/model styling/photography to emphasize a combination of contemporary with historical/heritage point of view.
Option 3: Utilizes fisherman line art imagery to communicate outdoorsmanship combined with a refined tailored image to communicate both the rugged and the “haberdashery” elements of the brand.
Option 4: Combines outdoor rugged textures (as backdrop) with utilitarian imagery. This concept has flexibility to show several different types of Filson customers in its on-figure photography. This point of view emphasizes the diversity of customer and the craftsmanship/innovation/versatility of the product.
Option 5: Utilizes the “Guide Book” format as a vehicle to emphasize retro Americana, and individual product options, with a background reference to the outdoor nature of the brand.
Option 6: Tools of the Trade: vehicle to tell a broader story with one single image. This is an opportunity to illustrate product detail and design, as well as lifestyle, with a historical backdrop of the antique container boxes.
Option 7: An “experiential approach”, this has an editorial “first person” point of view. A retro photographic feel with a contemporary typographic and styling approach.
Option 8: Similar to option 7, this option straddles contemporary with a heritage look and feel. This, however, utilizes an on-figure shot to represent the heritage concept and the product photography to represent a feel of a contemporary outfitter, with a sense of product depth.
Option 9: Utilizes Filson’s own product detail to communicate its attention to craftsmanship. Also captures through the use of headline and photography, the Heritage and Americana brand personality.
These are concept boards for Mariani Nut Crunch snacks for big box store presentation such as Costco and Sam's Club. Presented are three visual concept directions, "Blue Sky Fun" concept board direction emphasized a whimsical, child like direction, the "Life in the botanical garden" theme emphasized the natural origin or source of the product and "This equals That" concept highlight and visually quantified the nutrient value. The client chose for the pouch package creative direction the "This Equals That" concept.
Created for a big box store presentation, this package design was the "This equals That" concept reinterpreted into simple, contemporary clean graphics that follow the Mariani brand standards and guidelines.
Baolife is a nutrient dense powder drink mix targeted towards a health conscious, predominately female demographic. This is a design exploration of Baolife packaging concepts that show several different brand look and feel creative approaches.
For several years I created original concepting, art direction and photo prop styling for Food Services of America promotional Calendars. Initially produced out-of-house, these were successfully brought in house and went from a line item expense to a annual revenue source for Food Services of America.
Dairy Sell Kit - Maximum Flexibility in Usage, Maximum ROI Value.
The dairy category became a newly branded product line for Food Services of America and this brochure was designed with maximum sales flexibility as the goal. Master folder was designed to be produced in large numbers for economy of scale printing cost benefit. The interior pages would be scalable by sales staff based on which products they would be presenting to their customers.
Design based on a play on words concept. Double meanings and creative accompaniment of text were designed to give multi layers of depth and meaning to this visual communication piece.
Designed with maximum flexibility in mind, sales team can add or remove sell sheets based on product availability and customer needs at their discretion.
This brochure was created with a minimal amount of production cost. Utilizing stock imagery, simple fabric scans and repurposing Food Services of America promotional calendar photo assets this sales kit maximized ROI for sales associates.
Concept based on renewed interest in nutrient value of food, driven by the trend in organic foods, and awareness of food sources.
I have design and art directed core product packaging and beverage, for college campus retail, as well as specialty items for Costco, Sam’s Club and retail stores such as Safeway, QFC and other Kroger chains. Brand implementation, point-of-sale at retail and advertising to retail customers, Levi Strauss, Nordstrom, Hannah Andersen, Eddie Bauer, Woolrich, from concept through final prepress production. As an advisor to Upstreampolicy.org I am well versed in best practices in sustainable packaging. Major retailors such as Unilever, Levi's, are making the commitment to zero waste and a circular economy. Many retailers and manufacturers recognize cradle-to-cradle production is the future of packaging.
Different design concepts based on the creative direction promoting the nutrient values of milk.
Developed logo, photo art direction and packaging for this retail item for Kroger and Safeway store deli and frozen food section.
Logotype, photo art direction and packaging design developed to create and execute new brand of frozen heat and eat salmon dinner. Brand sold in retail frozen fish grocery category.
Designed for the bulk customer for Town & Country and Central Markets Bulk specialty oils and vinegars. The bottles include their brand tag line “ Food People Love.”
Design developed for in-store giveaway to promote customer purchase discounts.
Designed to be very individual in look and feel from month-to- month, and reflect the in-store wine brand. Hand selected wines and thoughtfully curated for their very specific customers.
This display was designed to be a “backdrop” for the large lobby entry dedicated to Valentines Day Florals in their Poulsbo, Washington market location.
This website "look and feel" was created based on these proposed parameters.
May Valley Farms Website Proposed Site Development
Scope:
Develop content experience for May Valley Farms using established brand design look and feel of website.
Product specific text/copy for on-site content, minimal, directional information, featured products and for later roll out, content that furthers the product/brand "story telling" with "ready to enjoy" easy product use opportunities.
Integrate social media into site, keeping the retail customer on MV site while expanding interactive experience.
Use specific social media that will most appropriately integrate within the site.
(ie embedded Facebook, Pinterest, etc icons.)
Integrated video content into a logical interactive space on web site.
Create YouTube channel specifically for May Valley Farms and promote subscriptions to channel.
Create events and other external support/promotional options for May Valley Farms in a progressive roll out. i.e. as the company expands profitability and sales through both retail and wholesale sales.
Goals:
To expand on the preliminary May Valley Farms website an interactive component to engage both retail and wholesale customers.
Retail Concepts:
Video:
1. Shooting new video with recipes utilizing May Valley product. This can be done affordably with simple video.
2. Use a mommy blogger as the "chef" to create a more accessible, targeted message
Distribution:
Create a channel for short (less than 3 minute) videos available on YouTube, and that tracks back to the website. This makes it much more accessible to a large audience and it also makes it shareable with it's own URL. Video embedded in a website can't go viral. On YouTube, it can.
Sharable content:
The best way to get a broad retail audience is to make the information sharable. Ways we achieve that:
1. Make the photos easily "pinable" for Pinterest -- a website used for sharing images. A person clicks on the image and they can save it to their own account. To get the recipe or learn more, they double click on the image and it takes them back to the original website. This is an extremely popular web-based tool
2. A channel specific to May Valley Farms on YouTube. It makes it much easier for people to share and distribute the information.
3. Create a Facebook page highlighting engagement (What's for dinner tonight? New ways to use May Valley fish, etc.)
CONTACT hillaryhusteddesign@gmail.com 425.941.3370
