PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY

Freelance Creative Director and Senior Designer with 25+ years of experience, primarily agency-side. Senior visual partner to agency and in-house creative teams across shopper marketing, retail, QSR, and CPG—contributing to concepts, shaping visual direction, and actively designing work from brand systems and campaigns through detailed execution across print, digital, and physical environments.

CORE SKILLS

Creative Direction  •  Art Direction  •  Shopper Marketing  •  Retail Marketing  •  Brand Identity and Visual Systems  •  360° Campaign Development  •  POS and Experiential Design  •  Presentation Design  •  Print Production  •  Digital Asset Design

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Independent Creative Director & Senior Designer
Susan Graan Creative Consulting  |  July 2017-Present

• Partner with creative and marketing teams on shopper, retail, and 360° integrated campaign work, bringing senior visual leadership to concept development, art direction, brand and visual ecosystem development, POS, collateral, presentation design, print production, and digital assets.

Graphic Designer & Production Artist (Contract)
Brunswick Corporation  |  April 2026-June 2026

• Supported marine recreation brands with high-volume digital and print advertising, website graphics, promotional banners, and internal communications across global brand and marketing teams.

Senior Creative (Contract)
VML  |  August 2024-November 2024

• Contributed concepts and design for Haleon OTC product launches and brand initiatives, including key visuals, POS and at-shelf experiences, video storyboards and creative direction, digital assets, logos, and campaign toolkits.
• Supported consumer-health and CPG masterbrand systems and commerce assets for Kimberly-Clark, Nestlé,  and Abbott.

Creative Director (Contract)
Arc  |  April 2024-August 2024

• Led concept development and initial sell-in presentations for a $1.3M Pernod Ricard shopper marketing scope across five beverage brands; set design direction and tactics for 360° on- and off-premise campaigns.

Senior Creative (Contract)
VML  |  July 2022-January 2024

• Sole creative lead for Haleon retail-media campaigns with Walgreens and CVS, partnership programs, video storyboarding and direction, and masterbrand work; also supported visual work for Perrier, Nestlé, Kimberly-Clark, and Abbott.

Creative Director and Designer (Contract)
OKRP  |  March 2022-May 2022

• Led design execution for the Illinois Office of Tourism’s “The Middle of Everything” campaign, including digital and out-of-home placements; developed the partner visual identity toolkit for a $30M rollout across 20 Illinois markets and seven nearby states.

Creative Director (Contract)
Shoptology  |  November 2021-March 2022

• Led concept development and design direction for shopper thought-leadership workshops and fast-turn presentations for Shell, Pepsi, Spalding, Euronet, and Walmart-facing teams; guided a small creative team to deliver work that helped retain and grow scope.

Creative Director, Print Production
OKRP  |  April 2018-June 2020

• Played a central role in the Illinois Lottery rebrand, from concepting and asset development to headquarters branding, digital brand guidelines, and asset management.
• Built OKRP’s first dedicated print-production function and managed staff and freelance designers; supported monthly retailer collateral and POS distributed to more than 7,500 locations.

VP Creative Director, McDonald’s
Arc  |  July 2009-July 2017

• Co-managed a 28-person creative team supporting $14M in annual agency revenue and helped set creative direction for value, growth, digital, new-platform launches, food quality, healthier options, Happy Meal, and all-family initiatives.
• With an account partner, led a small team that turned nontraditional-market and innovation-test opportunities into delivered work, generating more than $1M in incremental agency revenue.
• Led the nationwide rollout of digital menu boards across 14,000 McDonald’s restaurants; the program contributed to a 3-5% sales increase.
• Managed a $1M+ APMEA menu-product photo shoot end-to-end, coordinating 25+ days in Hong Kong, directing all image retouching, and developing a masterbrand image catalog with retouching standards.

Creative Director, P&G Shopper Based Design and Scale
Arc  |  June 2007-July 2009

Associate Creative Director, Ciba Vision
Arc  |  July 2006-June 2007

Senior Art Director, McDonald’s
Arc (formerly Frankel & Co)  |  June 1996-July 2006