Cape Coral, Florida (open to relocation or remote work)
Email: jacqui.dawson@gmail.com
Phone: 352.208.8174
Portfolio: jacqui-dawson.squarespace.com
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jacquidawson
Global Experience: Provided creative inspiration and coaching for a global team of more than 50 illustrators, designers and animators for more than 10 years, both on location and remotely. This improved the quality and marketability of the product in the U.S. market.
Training & Product Marketing: Designed and recorded a series of online tutorials for Digital Juice customers. These videos guided customers in the use of typography, color and design principles when using Digital Juice products, thus inspiring increased and more effective use of the products, and the confidence to purchase more.
Copy + Design: Unique ability to write, edit and proofread copy. I have written and edited everything from technical reports, user’s manuals and webpage copy to ad headlines, sales materials and marketing hype.
Software Expertise: Expert level in Adobe CC Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign.
Hardware Experience: Windows PC, Apple Macintosh, Amiga, Apollo—I am system agnostic.
Digital: Proficiency in MailChimp. WordPress and WordPress Divi Visual Builder. Created the external-facing website for in-house agency The Content Crew (the-content-crew.com).
Freelance Design Consultant, working remotely from Cape Coral, FL
May 2019 - present
Working with a variety of clients to provide logo design, identity and branding advice, magazine design and production, social media content, email design and print collateral materials. Clients include JSA (Jack Schroeder and Associates), Practice Builders, Eye Care Leaders, Global Growth LLC, ContentRx, Surgiorithm, Fortress Financial Partners, Center for Leadership Studies, and more.
Creative Director, The Content Factory/The Content Crew, an Eli Global Shared Services unit, Durham, NC, working remotely from Longwood, Fl and Cape Coral, FL
October 2015 - May 2019
Designed and produced digital content assets in the form of whitepapers, ebooks, landing pages, email blasts, and banner ads, for multi-pronged content marketing campaigns.
Work on Eye Care Leaders’ organic lead gen and nurture strategy eliminated their need to pay outside vendors for qualified leads. The Content Factory’s content strategy helped the company grow overall traffic and conversions 300%, claimed 40% of the eye care HIT market, and grew revenue from $17M to more than $55M.
Provided creative direction for all aspects of two 76-page quarterly magazines
Supervised all design, layout, ads and imagery, including managing the magazines’ layout team. These two magazines provided an advertising channel with a distribution and visual appeal rivaling or exceeding the largest publications in their markets, eliminating the need for the businesses to buy expensive trade publication advertising with questionable ROI.
Eye Care Leaders magazine sparked a call from an interested ophthalmologist, resulting in the multimillion-dollar acquisition of her thriving, 17-provider practice
Coordinated branding/rebranding for more than 25 client companies including start-ups, portfolios, established market leaders and special event entities, resulting in cost savings of more than 50% for companies utilizing our internal marketing company.
Met with client and stakeholders to determine parameters, market, timelines. Researched target market and audience to determine brand look and feel objectives. Executed logo design/redesign and provided logo file kit and brand design guide to ensure proper usage of brand deliverables internally and with external vendors.
Designed and produced high-quality branded event/conference collateral resulting in a professional cohesive identity for clients at every event:
Complete design of the look and feel of Eye Care Leaders ONE User Summit including event logo, exhibitor prospectus, event program, promotional post cards, print ads and banner ads, and all signage and banners at the event, attracting more than 700 attendees and exhibitors during the first year and establishing the framework for an annual event.
Senior Creative Director, Digital Juice, Inc., Lake Mary FL
March 2002 - August 2015
Provided daily creative direction and supervision over a global team of more than 50 graphic designers, illustrators and animators—on location for 4 years and remotely for 6 years
Planned design concepts and strategies, researched reference materials, mentored all levels of the design team, to suggest necessary changes in typography, color selection and layout so that the created content was the most useful and pertinent for the end-user.
Provided final approvals for a wide variety of design work from product packaging, product logos, webpages, daily email newsletters and print catalog layouts to original illustrations, animations and layout templates for stock content library products, ensuring they met high quality standards and were compatible with the U.S. market
Concepted, designed and produced online original inspiration/example design materials and video tutorials using Digital Juice stock content resulting in customers’ increased and more effective use of the products, and increasing their confidence to purchase more
Oversaw the design, layout and planning of a monthly magazine/catalog as Editor-in-Chief. This included gathering info, directing photo shoots, preparing art, writing articles, and supervising internal design team and external print production.
Assisted web team by designing and preparing materials for web pages, web banners and email blasts sent to the entire list of 30,000 customers as the major source for multimillion dollar company revenue
Created packaging designs for physical stock content libraries, including preparing full-scale mockups and working with outside printers to achieve desired quality result
Wrote, edited and proofread all marketing and technical copy including web content, user’s guides, ad copy, press releases and more, resulting in a more polished and coherent voice for the brand
Contract Graphic Designer, The Ashley Group, Chicago IL
March 2001 - February 2002
Created original page layouts and photo-manipulated illustrations for several nationally distributed high-end custom furniture books/hard cover catalogs, leading to a better representation of the products for potential customers
Website Producer, Digital Media Net, remote from Chicago IL
July 1999 - August 2000
Designed and produced two websites (DCCDesigner.com and DCCWorkstation.com) including Initial design in Dreamweaver, daily research and posting of news from PR Newswire, and writing of reviews and feature articles on new equipment and software. These websites were designed to consolidate news and provide valuable hands-on reviews to two underserved niche markets and were part of a larger group of similar linked websites.
Design Consultant, Post Magazine, Chicago IL & New York NY,
March 1999 - July 1999
Performed complete redesign of a popular post-production trade magazine in need of an updated look. The redesign brought a breath of fresh air to the magazine and its basic elements are still in use to this day.
Art Director/Senior Editor, Advanstar Communications (PC Graphics & Video, NT Studio, Digital Studio, NewTekniques & DCC Magazines), Santa Ana CA
Jan 1996 - May 1998
Responsible for month-to-month design/layout and timely production of complete magazines in coordination with editorial staff and production coordinator. Designed and helped launch three new magazines (Digital Studio, NewTekniques & DCC Magazines) for the content creation market. These magazines were critically acclaimed in the visual effects and content creation industries they serviced and lead directly to my next two career moves
Researched and wrote product reviews and feature articles and proofread and edited other material as required during magazine production, ensuring an error-free and well-respected source for readers
Art Director/Writer, CD-ROM Multimedia Magazine, Montreal QC
Aug 1994 - May 1995
Design and layout of magazine, including page design, text treatments and icon creation
Concept and creation of illustrative material
Contribution (text and graphics) of regular techniques column as well as reviews of relevant graphic design software and hardware
Graphic Designer, Sport Maska/CCM, Montreal QC
May 1993 - Aug 1994
Design and color separation of T-shirt, bicycle helmet, and hockey equipment graphics
Concept and production of promotional material, catalogs and packaging for above products
Maintenance and organization of computer network (Ethernet-linked Macintoshes)
Troubleshooting software and hardware problems, keeping up to date with technology
Freelance Graphic Designer/Writer/Illustrator
May 1995 - Present
I have done a variety of print design and illustration work, including books, newsletters, event posters, landscape visualization mockups, publication covers, logos, business cards, T-shirt designs, ads, web banners and direct mail cards. I have also contributed product reviews, feature articles and techniques columns to a number of computer graphics trade magazines.
Clients have included the Canadian Electricity Association, O&A Commercial Landscape Management, the Audio Engineering Society, TOREX Canadian Coin Collector’s Show, CrossFit Lake Mary, CarTan Publications, the Thomas More Institute, Zookbinders and Advanstar Communications (PC Graphics & Video Magazine).
Concordia University, Montreal QC, Canada, Bachelor of Fine Arts, Graphic Design
Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s NF, Canada, Bachelor of Science, Honors in Biology
On request