Portfolio of Alison Sauter

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Work Experience

DEPARTURE ADVERTISING
San Diego May 2008 – Mar 2009
Senior Art Director

SDSU SCHOOL OF FINE ARTS
San Diego January 2009 – May 2009
Packaging Design Instructor

MEDNEUTRAL
San Diego Oct 2007 – May 2008
Web Dev Designer

FREELANCE
Mires & Ball Packaging & Branding
Vitro Robertson Packaging & Advertising
Fresh Echo Interactive Design

VBAT
Amsterdam, NL Aug 2005 - Nov 2006
Senior Packaging + Brand Designer

MOUNTAIN DESIGN
The Hague, NL Aug 2001 - July 2005
Junior Packaging + Brand Designer

SURFACE MAGAZINE
San Francisco Feb - Apr 2001
Design Intern

SKIDMORE OWINGS & MERRILL
San Francisco June - August 2000
Junior Environmental Designer

WEBSTYLES INTERNET SOLUTIONS
Chicago 1999
Research Assistant for new business

Significant Achievements

2008, DEPARTURE
Art Directed the new ‘Passions’ campaign for the Ivy Hotel. Worked with Creative Director Art Bradshaw in developing concepts and leading production. Art Directed model selection. Created specs for hair, make-up, wardrobe and photography. Assisted stylist with wardrobe selection. Directed photographer during retouching to enhance the surreal ‘Passions’ quality - and personally retouched unfinished final edits. It was a stressful pace but the results were worth every bit.

2007, MEDNEUTRAL
Contracted to lead web dev design for MedNeutral, an online claims company. Responsible for updating wireframes, designing templates and graphic navigation systems, and delivering final redlines to be built by India engineers. I’m thankful to have this skill set under my belt but experiencing the trials of outsourcing to India leads to happy engineers and disappointed creatives. The results were never the same no matter how much we delivered to spec.

2006, VBAT
Art Directed the redesign of Whole Earth’s Organic Cereals and Canned Sodas which led to a 25% increase of sales. Through out the next year, the canned drinks design was nominated for the Dutch Design Awards and won the Red Dot Awards. I could spend the rest of my career working on organic foods!

2003, MOUNTAIN DESIGN
Created the winning ‘fruit personalities’ concept for the Snapple Europe pitch against 4 of the competing UK and NL top packaging agencies. It was my first Art Director experience and I couldn‘t have asked for a better team endeavor. This win brought us Cadbury Schweppes, one of the year’s most profitable clients.

Conceptual Skills

Brand development and strategy
Corporate design
Packaging design
Advertising design
Print design
Environmental design
Web / User interface design
Client interaction and presentation
Production for print
Photo retouching

Technical Skills

Adobe Illustrator - Very high level
Adobe Photoshop - High level
Adobe InDesign - Moderate level
Microsoft Office - High level
Powerpoint - High level

Corporate Clients

BCD Travel
Heineken International
ING Wholesale Bank
IVY Hotel
Invitrogen
MedNeutral
Notevault
OHM
Pottery Barn
ROTH Capital Partners
SNS Bank
Sf International Airport
Williams & Sonoma

Packaging Clients

Cadbury Schweppes
Campina
Coca-Cola
Dr. van der Hoog
Flexa
Honig
Interbrew
Kallo Foods
Natufoods
NurturMe
Snapple Europe
Unilever
Whole Earth Foods
Zuiver Zuivel

Awards

UK DESIGN INNOVATION AWARDS 2005
Nomination Packaging
Zuiver Zuivel Organic Milk Packaging

UK RED DOT AWARDS 2008
Winner Packaging
Whole Earth Canned Drinks

DUTCH DESIGN AWARDS 2008
Nomination Packaging
Whole Earth Canned Drinks

Background

WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
St. Louis, Missouri 2000
HBO/BFA Degree in Graphic Design;
Minor Degree in English Literature

DENMARK INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
Copenhagen, Denmark 1998
Study Abroad at School of Architecture

THE TAFT SCHOOL
Watertown, Connecticut 1996
Student Government Leader for
500 boarding school students

Languages

English
Dutch - Intermediate

Onesheet

Packaging

Corporate

Interactive

Boutique

Blog