Freelance Production Designer, CPG March 2011PRESENT

CHEN DESIGN ASSOCIATES Oakland CA STRANGER & STRANGER San Francisco, CA VOICEBOX CREATIVE San Francisco, CA DDW SAUSALITO, CA LIQUID AGENCY SAN FRANCISCO, CA Philippe Becker San Francisco, CA MICHAEL OSBORNE DESIGN San Francisco, CA Trinity brand Berkeley, CA APPLE COMPUTER Cupertino, CA

Recent brands include: Clover Sonoma, Amazon, Naked Juices, Izze, Smart & Final, Emergen-C, Treasury Wine Estates, Sconza Candy Co., The Men’s Wearhouse, Safeway.

Senior Production Artist
CBA DESIGNSan Francisco, California NOVEMBER 2017 – NOVEMBER 2018

CBA is an international strategic branding and design company with offices in ten countries. As Senior Production Artist for North America, I worked with the creative teams in New York and San Francisco creating CPG final art mechanicals, 3-D renderings, store signage, and brand guidelines for compelling national and international brands. Clients included Häagen-Dazs® Ice Cream, Purina Beyond® Natural Pet Food, Tom’s of Maine, Al Fakher Tobacco, Carnation, Universal Audio, and Rinse. I also contributed to the creation of an entirely revamped file server structure, participated in biweekly scheduling meetings, supervised freelance production artists and retouchers, and led production-hand over calls to outside vendors. Highlights include:

• Rollout of new packaging for all Häagen-Dazs® Ice Cream Bars (24 skus; photo retouching and final art mechanicals)

• Rollout of new packaging for Tom’s of Maine personal care items (30+ skus; photo retouching and final art mechanicals)

• Packaging guideline creation for Tom’s of Maine and S-26® nutritional formulas

• Creation of new recipes/skus for Purina Beyond® Natural Pet Food and an extensive brand assets archive

Production Manager
Voicebox Creative, Inc. San Francisco, California March 2010 – March 2011

Voicebox is a world-class boutique design firm with award-winning early success creating label artwork for several distinguished and high-profile Napa Valley wineries. At seven years old, with five designers on staff, they sought to broaden their expertise in CPG with the ground-up creation of an in-house production department. As their first staff Production Manager, I worked with the design staff and principals to meet the full-scale production demands of clients such as Clover Organics, Naked Juices, Emergen-C, and Double Rainbow to name a few prestigious clients. I created new processes that shifted final art and technical responsibilities towards this new department and into the hands of three junior staff members who I trained as we grew. Other achievements include:  

  • Created specialized extension systems for larger rollouts (Naked Juices, Hugo Naturals) that assisted both design and production with brand architecture.

  • Created asset-inventory and tracking methods for larger rollouts (Hugo, Clover Organic) that gauged progress and enabled accurate forecasting.

  • Managed all digital and offset printers and print jobs, attending press-checks throughout the country.

  • On a weekly basis created schedule for every studio employee that addressed budgeted hours, turnaround, and staff availability.

  • Initiated knowledge-sharing gatherings that brought the company together in an engaged, inspirational, but lighthearted way.

Sr. Production Designer
ANTHEM! A Schawk Strategic Design Company San Francisco, California May 2003 – March 2010 

My primary responsibility at ANTHEM—Following a successful, two year rollout for Albertson’s Essensia Brand, my primary responsiblity for Anthem became leading the implementation of Safeway’s store brands as they were redesigned from 2005-2010, requiring hands-on mechanical development, strategy for extending design concepts, tracking of categories (from design stage, through ANTHEM production, and finally to our parent company Schawk for further extension) and supervision of freelance staff. For each of our clients,  I created brand-wide architecture systems and authored client Style Guides to successfully cohere basic conceptual work across an entire private label offering, then created mechanicals and supervised freelancers working off guides that I wrote. These comprehensive guides were distributed to the client and all interested vendors as a private label on-going reference manual. These “systems” include: Alberstson’s Essensia; Safeway “S Brand”; Eating Right; Safeway Select; Safeway OTC Medication, Health and Beauty, and First Aid; Truly Brand; eMart. I formally instructed—via presentations and one-on-one instruction—designers on more efficient and satisfying means with Creative Suite software versions as they came out. I initiated more efficient file and server structure for use with Account, Creative, and Production Departments.

Freelance Production Designer, CPG
Seven Worldwide San Francisco, California2001 – 2003

Alberston’s Essensia account

Freelance Production Designer, CPG
Deutsch Design Woks San Francisco, California2001

Van de Kamps; Uncle Ben’s; Anheuser-Bush; Pepsi-Cola; Robert Mondavi Winery; Sprint.

Fine Art Photography Editions and Retouching
Frank Yamrus, Photographer New York, New York2006 – 2012 

Design, production, retouching, project management for the edition I FEEL LUCKY published February 2012 in conjunction with Clamp Art, New York, NY. Fine Art Digital Photo Retouching for the series’ “Lucky” and Rune Lagu. Works represented by John Cleary Gallery, Houston, TX; Clamp Art, NY, NY. Collection purchased by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX.