Employer: The Outdoor Recreation Group (TORG) | Brands: Columbia, Outdoor Products, & More
Role: Senior Color Designer/Senior Graphic Designer/Art Director
Project: TORG is a consumer goods company rooted in the outdoor industry, specializing in the manufacturing of backpacks, waist packs, duffels, and a multitude of other items you would find in the camping aisle of any sporting goods store. The company maintains sizable mass market accounts with all of the main chains including Walmart, Target, Dick's Sporting Goods, Big 5, and more. TORG has also been a licensee of specialty brands such as Columbia Sportswear and others in the fishing & hunting space, providing the opportunity to develop higher price point collections in addition to their bread & butter. With the company for over 6 years, I worked on multiple teams and in various roles. As Senior Color Designer, I handled everything from creating robust color & trend reports, to choosing color palettes (and creating patterns) for all product lines each season, to interfacing with vendors in Asia throughout the color evaluation process of every material. I developed (and maintain) an excellent relationship with the folks at Pantone, and traveled frequently to trade shows for research.
During my last 2 years with the company I performed double-duty as the Senior Graphic Designer as well, managing a team of 3 designers and a photographer. While collaborating with clients and internal stakeholders, I led the charge in developing brand identity systems for product lines, along with critical sales collateral and presentations. With hundreds of products in the market, 500+ pieces of packaging came across my desk every year, and I signed off on every single one of them. Some of my proudest accomplishments during this time include work on TORG's Columbia and Outdoor Products trade show booths at the Outdoor Retailer show in Denver, which showcased not only the product lines I worked on, but also all of the packaging and planning I managed. I ran point on creative and logistics planning, including art direction, product assortment & merchandising, graphics & video content, exhibit layout, and the installation & dismantle processes.
Contributions: Management, Creative Direction, Art Direction, Color Design, Seamless Textile Pattern Design, Color & Trend Reports, Color Evaluation Processes, Color Spec Documents, Graphic Design, Packaging, Catalogs, Point-of-Purchase, Copywriting, Trade Show Booths, Visual Merchandising, Product Styling & Photography
