Pamela Golafshar

Freelance Art Director/Visual Designer

• Responsible for creating brand identities, developing creative strategies and delivering final design executions for digital and traditional design.
• Recent projects include: UI/UX mobile/web app product design | Campaign branding and visual design | Book cover and e-book design | Corporate brand identity and sales/marketing assets | Multi-page document design.

Design Director

• Created, fostered and delivered creative concepts that met strategic briefs and expectations across all channels, for global pharmaceutical CROs in the clinical trial industry.
• Managed creative studio operations including best practices for project workflow, strategic creative development, and digital asset management.
• Spearheaded an expansion of the brand identity by creating illustration guidelines; supervised development of new brand iconography and animations that adhered to high quality brand standards.
• Led and motivated brand design team to produce best-in-class communications while ensuring brand consistency and strategic alignment with organizational goals.
• Developed visual concepts to address strategic marketing solutions as defined by briefs, requiring an understanding of stakeholder business challenges and goals.
• Fostered contractor and agency relationships; provided creative direction for external partners.
• Utilized data analysis to evaluate and improve campaign success.
• Partnered with copywriter and ECD on campaign concept development.
• Presented concepts and designs to stakeholders at all levels, providing design rationale to support impactful creative design.
• Initiated partnership with UX/product design team to ensure cohesive brand identity across all mediums.
• Created visualizations to help improve cross-functional communication and workflow efficiency throughout project lifecycle.

Senior Art Director

• Provided creative strategy, art direction and visual design in a fast-paced, deadline-driven agency setting.
• Produced high-quality work for B2B and B2C clients, from concepting to design executions, across all mediums: digital, print, interactive and website design; designed storyboards and art directed video, animation and motion design projects.
• Responsible for leading the collaborative development of conceptual artwork, storyboards, sketches, and other creative elements during the concept/ideation phase, while adhering to brand guidelines.
• Provided critical feedback to other team members, mentoring designers and coaching industry best practices.
• Consulted with clients and team members to understand user needs; relied on data from user research to inform creative and content strategy.
• Provided art direction for photo shoots from concept to completion.
• Presented creative solutions to stakeholders, articulating design rationale and building support for creative concepts and ideas.
• Designed multi-page websites, including wireframes, design systems, functional prototypes, mockups and hi-fidelity designs to create brand experiences that are intuitive, impactful, and accessible and that followed usability best practices.
• Proven ability to learn new industries and knowledge of consumer product, client business, product strategy and differentiators.
• Developed branding and design deliverables for clients in the healthcare/pharma industry: clinical trials, HCP and D2C campaigns.

Creative Director

• Provided creative direction for the ideation/execution of various marketing campaigns including mood boards, concepting, experiential & visual design elements, as well as developing timelines of all communication touchpoints.
• Developed creative briefs to translate business goals across all channels, driving strategy, vision and execution.
• Reviewed work and provided effective, actionable feedback to the creative team in a timely manner.
• Managed campaign budgets and profitability on six-figure accounts.
• Created work informed by data analysis, collaborating with cross-functional teams to improve campaign effectiveness.
• Created experiential event concepts and large-scale environmental branding and signage plans for events including conferences, sales meetings and business events.

Creative Director

• Creative direction, omni-channel creative strategy and hands-on visual design for a consumer retail company.
• Created the brand identity from the ground up, ensuring consistent brand expression across all platforms including retail POP, packaging, website, social media, advertising, photography and B2B sales presentations.
• Developed customer-centric creative strategy in tandem with business goals to drive engagement, brand awareness and an overall positive customer experience.
• Art directed product photography and lifestyle shoots.
• Created and implemented a redesigned e-commerce website which elevated the customer experience, contributing significantly to the growth of the business and increasing sales by 30% YOY.

Creative Director

• Responsible for managing a culturally diverse team of 4-5 creatives.
• Provided leadership and mentorship while fostering a culture of inclusion and open collaboration.
• Led strategic development of abstract conceptual creative ideas, driving creative vision and overseeing execution from concept to completion.
• Managed team’s productivity, timelines and budget while motivating creativity and overseeing deliverables for print, digital, video, animation and social media.
• Provided hands-on design and illustration for campaigns.
• Increased audience engagement by developing thematic visual concepts and overseeing execution of environmental, experiential and multimedia design executions.
• Managed a team of volunteer creatives in the local community, empowering and fostering new ideas and leading the execution of experiential events.
• Hired, managed and provided creative direction for third-party vendors.
• Developed the branding and created visuals for an international conference on social justice; integrated an intuitive human centered design thinking approach to bring improvements to the attendee experience YOY.

Graphic Designer

• Created comprehensive branding based on abstract concepts foreach thematic series, including poster series, presentation templates, social media, digital collateral and supporting printed materials.
• Supported other in-house departments with graphic design needs.

Graphic Designer

• Provided in-house graphic design for a world-renowned art museum.
• Designed print ads, outdoor banners, posters, brochures and other printed materials for exhibitions, educational programs and events at the museum.
• Received a promotion within the first few months due to work ethic, learning agility, high quality standards and design aesthetic.

Skills

• Visual, UI/UX design
• Art direction
• Creative strategy
  
• Strong conceptual and visual communication skills
  
• Meticulous attention to detail
  
• Flexible, adaptable
  
• Organized, analytical
  
• Agile learner
  
• Empathetic
  
• Motivated, driven
  
• High standards of excellence
  
• Familiar with WCAG and other accessibility guidelines
  
• Current with industry trends
  
• Branding, advertising, marketing, UX
  
• Typography, illustration, composition, color theory and other graphic design principles
  
• Visual design, graphic design, digital design, web design, interactive design, UI/UX design
  

Software

• Adobe Creative Suite (CS)
• Adobe InDesign (LinkedIn Skills Assessment Badge: Top 5%)
• Adobe Illustrator (LinkedIn Skills Assessment Badge: Top 5%)
• Adobe Photoshop (LinkedIn Skills Assessment Badge: Top 15%)
  
• Other design tools: Adobe XD, Figma, Sketch
  
• WordPress, Webflow, HTML/CSS
  
• Microsoft Office: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook
  
• Presentation: Keynote, Prezi
  
• Collaboration: MS Teams, Slack, Google Docs, Sheets, etc.
  
• Project management: Asana, Trello, Workamajig, etc.
  
• Digital asset management: Frontify, Dropbox, etc.
  

Education/Certifications

Greenville University

George Fox University

Courses:

• Learn UI Design
• Learn UX Design
• UX Foundations
• UX Design
• Design Thinking
• Storytelling for Designers
• Critical Thinking
• Learning Design Research