Chuck Strauch

I coordinate and manage the packaging development and production processes utilizing our in-house and Asia teams, handling our in-house and private label brands for many large name retailers, including Lowes, Kroger and Target. I am involved in most aspects of getting our products to retail, from digital design, art directing photo shoots, coordinating with retail partners, producing 3D renderings, and I also manage tradeshow development and production.

• I manage 8 Direct Reports: 7 full-time Artists for the KitchenAid, Farberware, All Recipes, Instant Pot & Drew Barrymore Beautiful businesses, plus 1 Data Asset Manager.
•Assist the VP of Creative Services in overseeing the entire 26-person staff of artists, copy editors, traffic managers and 2 person photo studio.
•Involved in all aspects of creative services workflows.
•Digital design - direction for e-commerce brand stores, A+ and enhanced web pages, including photography direction for lifestyle images and infographics.
•Print - concept design, production, die line creation, prepress, art directing teams, directing photo shoots.
•I also develop workflows, liaise with category management, industrial designers, marketing, sales and outside contractors & partners.
•With Adobe XD, I’ve built wireframes and brand store/A+ interactive mockups for clients and sales teams.
•Using SketchUp, Adobe Dimension, Strata/Blender 3D, along with Illustrator and PhotoShop, to enhance our sales presentations with more realistic renders of our items and packaging in retail environments.
•Experience using Adobe Dimension to create detailed designs for clients, then exporting them to Adobe Aero for a Mixed Reality experience, where the models can be seen and manipulated in your environment using a mobile device.
•In 2019, planned and oversaw Creative Services migration from using in-house servers to Google Drive Cloud Storage, resulting in zero downtime as the company switched to remote work in March 2020 due to the pandemic.
•Budget, purchase and administer all department Macs, their software, printers and new digital asset management system.
•From 2000-2017, as Associate Creative Director, oversaw the Photography Studio, managing the 2 photographers and their scheduling.

Prepared electronic files for color separation on imagesetter and created match prints.
Performed daily maintenance on machines.
Designed corporate identities.
Photo retouched drum scans.

Designed brochures, engineering spec sheets with Adobe Framemaker, letterhead and advertising for new global electronic components company.
Created slide presentations for sales reps using MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
Aided in implementing new design procedures for corporate identity.
Other responsibilities included prepress, troubleshooting postscript errors, color and font problems.

Prepared electronic files for color separation on imagesetter and created match prints.
Photo retouched drum scans, many for Topps Baseball Cards.

Created packaging from concept through completion.
Designed advertisements, annual reports, trade show banners and signage.