Last spring, I had the good fortune of contributing to the west elm holiday packaging. It’s amazing how far in advance you think about the holidays when it comes to retail.
Over the summer I took an assignment in the Sports Illustrated marketing department. Talk about a fish out of water. I’m pretty much a non-athlete ; I have coordination issues following my aerobics teacher and I used to do a bit of surfing but that was 3 years ago prior to becoming a mother and now I’m afraid of inflicting bodily harm now that I have someone else who depends on me.
But while I’m totally unaware of what goes on in the sports world, I have a small working knowledge of golfers that only can be chalked up to my husband’s 24-7 obsession with the sport. TV is always burning a hole in our house Sunday and Monday night due to football; I have even considered messing with his fantasy football line ups. The guys at SI took a chance on me and let me play around with one of the Sportsman of the Year campaign, its way to commend heroic and fair play in the world of sports. My take on the ad campaign never made it into production but I feel that it put up a good fight in the ring.
(Note: photos are part of SI archives)
Post Holidays
A year and half in the making and my swan song debuts: price tickets at J.Crew appear on fall merchandise.
The keepsakes in my closet…J.Crew.
I’ve established that I’m pretty much a tomboy but if you ever looked down on my feet, I would most likely be wearing impractically high heels of metallic leather or green satin collected from my years at J.Crew. However, lack of space and the practicality of chasing a 13 month old son prohibits me from glamming up and continuing to add pairs to my collection.
Whipping up marketing confections to target the ladylike consumer was also a huge part of my role as a designer. The look of most of my work for women’s was restrained and modern, with hints of blush or a flicker of silver, unlike the previous preppy era. I helped update the entire store packaging program propelling it way past the dated brown paper bag that had lived too long. Should you go into the J.Crew Bridal Boutique and buy something, you might have it wrapped up in the packaging program that I created to keep treasures for a special day to come.
The desire to elevate the shopping experience also fell to updating the staid look of the credit card program, store signage, various look books, clothing labels and event invitations. It was like cutting off waist length hair to a chic bob; away with the hunter green and happy fonts, in with silvery gray and tall, slim Avant Garde.
I hope that one day soon, I too one day will get a makeover and fill those lonely shoes collecting dust in my closet.
J.Crew and bridal packaging, women’s seasonal look book, promotional items and credit card.
Seasonal editorial showroom invitation.
Seasonal editorial showroom invitation detail.
Women’s suiting button envelope hang tag.
Never enough denim…Madewell.
Madewell, the girly utilitarian brand, was very new when I started at J.Crew. While I was pretty enveloped with designing J.Crew materials, I occasionally got a chance to help shape the early iterations of this jean shop with packaging and environmental graphics.
Madewell Soho storefront window, zipper decal.
Madewell holiday tissue paper.
The J.Crew man and the tomboy.
I’m a tomboy at heart. Sure I love frilly, girly clothes but you are more likely to find me in motorcycle boots, jeans and some sort of workwear plaid shirt. I get crazy about ticking fabric on the inside of a chino waistband and rugged looking bags that only get better with wear and dirt. Plus menswear with a peek of a distinctly feminine item is just plain sexier than something very obvious.
J.Crew Men’s Shop promotional items, packaging and seasonal lookbook.
During my last year at J.Crew, I helped shape how marketing spoke to the customer. The menswear business was enjoying a face lift; updates on basics like polo shirts to heritage items spoke to function but designed with fashion in a quiet enough way that the old consumer base would purchase without knowing it and magazines would take notice because the clothes were so darn good. The infusion of partnerships and openings of smaller, edited boutiques gave way to a renaissance.
I had the good fortune of designing packaging for the 484 Broadway shop, grand opening marketing materials and created some in store graphics turned handpainted signs. To round that out, I worked with the clothing designers to publish several lookbooks, invitations to showroom viewings, and developed advertising. Lastly, I art directed an initiative capsule called “Jack know best,” aimed at dispensing fashion dude do’s and don’ts with the copy and online teams. It continues to evolve today.
J.Crew 484 Broadway Men’s Shop Newsletter detail.
Unpublished New York Times advertising.
Spring 2008 Lookbook
Ask Jack campaign online component produced by interactive team.
A very frugal Christmas
Before December began, I updated my 1920’s Singer sewing machine with a newer
Molly and Chris get married.
I designed invitations as a wedding present on a budget and inspired by the 1920’s.
Technicolor life at Bloomies
I was like Dorothy going from Kansas to Oz when I started this turn. I didn’t have any idea how to work a new program called InDesign when I started with Bloomingdale’s but like fashion marketing, I picked it up pretty fast. The customer was highly varied from newly engaged couples, international visitors, children, men and the main base of fashion consuming 20-something woman. Color, illustration, sparkles…these are not things I used on a regular basis at my previous financial publication experiences.
Promotional mailers, wedding event materials and gift card packaging.
San Fransisco store newspaper advertising.
Concierge magazine advertising.
My first job at The WSJ
Mutual Fund Research Survey Cover.
Mutual Fund Research Survey inside detail.
I attended a medium sized college in Virginia with a modest sized graphic design community. My favorite professor, Trudy Cole-Zielanski was always funny, honest and very down to earth. One of the most traumatizing and extremely informative exercises she had the students run through was “The two-hour logo design”. Now I realize Trudy kept this project close to the end of graduation because had students understood that this would be asked of them in the real world, they would of become business students instead. I can’t say I even remember what my logo looked like, but I was just a little inkling closer to being ready for a real job.
The fall after graduation, I landed a junior design position with the in house marketing group of The Wall Street Journal becoming not Stephanie Lee but the “new Julie” for the previous designer who had just been promoted. My cubicle was positioned amongst a couple research analysts, which turned out to be an asset in education and focus. During my time with the Journal, I created a variety of packaged research studies for use by the ad sales team plus promotional materials, flash based websites (when it was the hot new thing), advertising, trade show booth art. My coworkers, from the research analyst to my right to the 30 year old design veteran to my left, taught me to have fun with stuffy projects, print production, diplomacy and to always ask, “Who are we targeting with this project?”.
Research Resources Broaster cover.
Research Resources Broaster detail.
Perhaps it may not make sense to mention the other ways this particular job shaped me as a person, but I would feel amiss not to. The feeling of family was something that I’ve not been able to recreate any where else. The friendships I made while working at The WSJ are long standing and continue to this day. We worked together on September 11th, watched colleagues walk into our offices recounting horrors they witnessed on the way to work and those who needed to leave their Battery Park homes because the air was full of dust. The days of hoping for one of our own reporters, Daniel Pearl, would come home and trying to give support to his wife and child while waiting to hear news. Maybe it was youth or living several hundred miles from my parents that helped create these bonds however, these people equally adopted me as part of their lives as well. It’s 4 1/2 years that I’ll always be grateful to have stumbled upon.
