Susan E. Smith
Award-winning Creative Director with expertise designing and delivering measurably powerful creative for a diverse set of brands. Innovative solutions from concept through execution in agency, start-up, corporate, and small businesses. Strategic, integrated marketing, broadcast, online, experiential, and print campaigns. Specializing in e-commerce, brand strategy, lifestyle, and trend-forecasting.
EXPERIENCE:
Creative Director Freelance 2016—Present
Freelance Creative Director for brand development, strategic positioning, creative concepts, print, promotional, interactive and mobile design for a range of tech, lifestyle, entertainment, fashion, artisanal brands, and non-profits.
Recent work for: Nissan, AT&T, Direct TV, HBO, Downtown LA Neighborhood Council (DLANC), Riverdel Fine Foods, and Wings Over Haiti.
Priceline.com 2007—2015
Senior Creative Director (2014—2015)
• Oversaw creative direction for $30M integrated marketing campaign including on and offline advertising, social media and internal branding.
• Won 2015 Bronze Effie Award for Sustained Success in Advertising for “The Priceline Negotiator” campaign.
• On set creative direction for broadcast and online media working with renowned directors including Craig Gillespie (Lars and the Real Girl, Fright Night), Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive), Roman Coppola (Moonrise Kingdom), and celebrity photographer Bryce Jordan.
Creative Director (2012—2014)
• Creative direction for “The End” television campaign and offline creative promoting the retail hotel product. The primary 30 second ad generated over 1M unique, unpaid views on YouTube becoming the most viewed priceline.com commercial in company history.
• Creative direction for new “Express Deals” product on- and offline, product branding, desktop and mobile interfaces, and offline assets for broadcast. Express Deals comprised over 50% of the hotel bookings for priceline.com at the end of the first year.
• Designed and produced branded interiors for 80,000 sq. ft. open-plan priceline.comcorporate headquarters in Norwalk, CT. Spaces included the lobby, conference rooms, open-plan meeting areas as well as board rooms, CEO’s office and presentation spaces.
• Drove concept and creative for the brand’s highest performing social media campaigns consistently performing well above the 5% targeted engagement rate.
• Awarded 2010 Silver Effie Award for Priceline Negotiator Campaign.
• Recipient of 2009 priceline.com CEO Award for top performing employees.
Art Director (2007—2008)
• Created brand guidelines and established brand pillars and voice.
• Lead rebranding of priceline.com company-wide, including the priceline.com e-commerce site with the focus on improved UI and UX and new brand voice, resulting in 43%+ YOY Full-Year increase in gross travel bookings after launch due to improved conversion.
• Built an in-house creative department tasked with bringing the new identity to life in all interactive media.
• Inspired and led teams, managing in-house design team and external vendors.
Jupiterimages 2005—2007
Creative Director (2006—2007)
• Designed Jupiterimages.com, Thinkstock.com and Comstock.com while supervising designers, copywriters, web and print production teams in the U.S. and Europe.
• Won 3 International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences Webby awards for outstanding work in designing the comstock.com website; Standard of Excellence Award (2002) and the Outstanding Website Award (2003 and 2005).
• Recognized for Best Media Website by The Web Marketing Association in 2005 for thinkstock.com.
Senior Designer (2005—2006)
• Drove the creative design and development of all websites, marketing collateral, direct mail, catalogs, email, identity packages, and print campaigns for Jupiterimages the third largest supplier of stock photography in the world at the time.
• Provided creative direction and styled photoshoots producing promotional photos for use on the web, video, and print.
Freelance Art Director 2000—2005
Art Director and Interactive Designer for clients including McGraw-Hill, Merck, Sony, MTV, Berlitz, and Wall Street Institute, Scholastic, Actor Valerie Harper, and The State Street Ballet Company.
EDUCATION & DEVELOPMENT
Post Graduate Interactive
Design Program
Parsons School of Design
New School
Bachelor of Arts
B.A. Graphic Design
Pennsylvania State University
COMPETENCIES:
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe InDesign
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe XD
Branding & Identity
Direction for Photo Shoots
Email Design and Content Creation
Integrated Campaign Creation
Interactive Design
Packaging Design
Print Design and Production
Social Media & Content Strategy
Strong Communication Skills
User Interface Design
Visual Design