Senior Art Director and Senior Photo Director
After making huge leaps forward with Judith Lieber's online presence, Macy's approached me to take the lead on their creative team for men's and kids' fashion. It was an exciting opportunity that I couldn't turn down.
Story Telling
Macy's had new events and promotions happening every week. While it was easy to send out a templated email with a simple grid of buy-one-get-one deals or percentages off, I knew that it wasn't enough to truly engage our customers. In order to make a lasting impression, our emails, landing page ads, and product displays needed to do more than just a list of discounts and sales.
I believed that these marketing materials should tell a story, one that would capture the attention of our customers and keep them engaged. Rather than just bombarding them with a list of promotions, we needed to create a flow that would take them on a journey and showcase the value of our products in a way that felt genuine and exciting.
As the head of the creative team, I made it my mission to ensure that every marketing asset we created had a cohesive story that resonated with our audience. Whether it was through bold imagery, compelling copy, or interactive elements, we wanted our customers to feel like they were part of something special and unique. By doing so, we were able to build a stronger brand identity and foster a more loyal customer base.
Once the Core Visual Aids was complete I created the Brand Guidelines so there were clearly defined rules for designing for the brand.
Photo Art Direction
As a photographer for over 20 years, I was thrilled when I was put in charge of directing the shoots for all of my campaign assets. I knew that this was an area where I could make a real impact. Since I am a photographer myself, I found it much easier to communicate my vision for the shots to the other members of my team, including the photographer and stylist. This open communication allowed us to move through more shots quickly, and often enabled us to wrap up ahead of schedule. Furthermore, because I was working with such a talented and creative team, I felt comfortable pitching out-of-the-box shot ideas, some of which we were able to use later down the road. This willingness to take creative risks allowed us to pitch dozens of unique and interesting ideas that ultimately made their way into the final campaign assets.
Animations
The easiest thing I knew we could do was animations. I had seen a lot of bad attempts, but I knew the limitations we had to work within to make them usable. After a few pitches, we were able to get a few animations used in emails, including one for Guess.
A Different Approach
One of the biggest challenges in creating new campaign images for a large department store like Macy's is ensuring that everyone is getting full representation. To address this, I was given open use of the merchandising room and was able to use whatever products I could find to craft shots that showcased the full depth of the store's offerings.
As a photographer for over 20 years, I was thrilled when I was put in charge of directing the shoots for all of my campaign assets. I knew that this was an area where I could make a real impact. Since I am a photographer myself, I found it much easier to communicate my vision for the shots to the other members of my team, including the photographer and stylist. This open communication allowed us to move through more shots quickly, and often enabled us to wrap up ahead of schedule. Furthermore, because I was working with such a talented and creative team, I felt comfortable pitching out-of-the-box shot ideas, some of which we were able to use later down the road. This willingness to take creative risks allowed us to pitch dozens of unique and interesting ideas that ultimately made their way into the final campaign assets.
Proving my skills in the photo studio I started running full campaigns in all forms of media: Web both desktop and tablet, multiple catalogs, newspaper, ads, bill boards reaching close to 400 assets for big events distributed over 8 people I personally ran Macy's biggest events some for multple years.
Campaign Creation
