When I joined Vita Coco as the sole in-house designer, the volume of creative requests was manageable. However, as the brand experienced rapid growth, the sheer influx of project requests became unsustainable. I found myself spending over half my day on administrative tasks—organizing emails, tracking projects, and barely having time for actual design work. This bottleneck threatened to necessitate hiring additional designers purely for process management.
Recognizing this critical operational challenge, I took the initiative to move beyond individual design tasks. My goal was to architect a robust system that could scale our creative output, reduce administrative overhead, and empower the design team to focus on impactful work, all while maintaining stringent brand consistency across a global product portfolio.
To tackle the growing administrative burden, I designed and implemented an entirely new, automated creative request workflow. Leveraging nascent automation tools like Zapier (circa 2013-2014), I integrated Wufoo forms for intake, Evernote for detailed briefs, Trello for project tracking, and Google Sheets for data analysis.
This bespoke system drastically reduced the time spent on administrative tasks—from over 4 hours a day to less than 1 hour a week. It freed me up to return to design work and prolonged the need to hire another full-time designer for over a year, resulting in significant operational cost savings. At times, this system supported up to 5 designers (in-house and freelance), effectively making me the de facto leader and workflow manager for the creative team.
Beyond workflow automation, I revolutionized our packaging production process. I developed an advanced system within Adobe Illustrator using libraries and nested symbols. This innovation meant that any packaging element—from a legal disclaimer to a design motif—could be updated once and cascade automatically across all flavor, size, and regional variations. This eliminated manual, repetitive edits, ensuring absolute consistency and significantly reducing the likelihood of errors across hundreds of SKUs.
In parallel, I established a groundbreaking workflow for creating high-fidelity product 'hero shots' without the need for costly 3D specialists. I built an ad hoc photo studio, photographed blank bottles, and then meticulously overlaid them with fully editable Photoshop Smart Objects. This system, renowned for its realism and ease of use, allowed our in-house team to rapidly generate product visuals, saving thousands of dollars in external agency fees and enabling quick pivots in marketing campaigns. The utility of these these master files and my expertise in building them was so critical that after my departure I was often called upon as a freelancer to create them for new product launches.
My role also involved dynamic creative adaptation to strengthen Vita Coco's brand identity. I tackled projects like the 200ml sample-only Tetra Pak, skillfully adapting existing illustrations and creating new ones in the distinct Vita Coco style. This process involved navigating numerous legal and marketing revisions, showcasing my ability to maintain brand voice while ensuring compliance.
I also contributed to retail campaigns, developing conceptual designs for in-store displays (e.g., for Walmart) that, even when realized after my tenure, visibly retained the core elements of my original vision. This combination of creative adaptation, technical precision, and strategic problem-solving consistently enhanced brand presence and recognition through new campaigns and special event packaging.
I’m drawn to strange questions, bold ideas, and the edges of what’s possible. If you’re here to make meaning—or make something beautiful—drop me a line. Don’t be shy. Let’s make something weird and wonderful.
