Brand Development & Creative Direction

Jon Samuels

Head of Creative & Design

I lead creative across six consumer brands, partnering with the CEO and senior stakeholders to build distinctive brands and commercially effective work.

15+ years building brands, leading teams and setting creative direction across consumer, retail and technology businesses, bringing together brand identity, campaigns, ecommerce, CRM and content.

View selected work →

Current role · 2019 – present

Head of Creative & User Experience Design at Days of Your Life Group, a multi-brand gifting and experiences group including Find Me A Gift and Activity Superstore. I joined to help turn a retail-led business into a digitally led one, and have led creative through its growth from one brand to six.

I set creative direction and standards across brand, ecommerce, CRM, packaging and video, including packaging and in-store creative for Primark, Boots and Next. I built and managed the in-house creative team, and brought AI tools such as Adobe Firefly into production.

Work from this role is under NDA, so it isn't shown here. I'm happy to talk it through at interview.

Capabilities

Brand & Creative Direction

Building and evolving brands, defining creative direction and developing ideas that give businesses a distinctive identity.

Campaigns & Content

Developing creative concepts and directing campaigns across photography, social, CRM and customer communications.

Creative Leadership

Building creative capability, developing teams, setting standards and leading work from initial brief to final delivery.

Digital & Ecommerce

Bringing brands to life online through considered ecommerce design, customer journeys and effective digital experiences.

Brand Systems & Design

Creating visual identities, guidelines and scalable design systems that maintain consistency without restricting creativity.

Creative Production & Art Direction

Directing photography, video and content production, from creative concept and visual direction through to execution and delivery.

Selected Creative Work All work →

Brand Identity · Art Direction · Ecommerce

MyStylist

Brand identity, art direction and a guided ecommerce experience for a personal styling start-up, putting advice before products.

Brand Strategy · Identity · Illustration

Invest Southend

A full brand identity for a privately funded property investment initiative — from strategy and positioning through to visual identity, illustration and digital campaign. Winner of two Essex Digital Awards: Best Digital Campaign and Best Responsive Website.

Packaging · Brand Extension · Retail & Amazon

Vidalforce

Packaging system and brand extension for a haircare range, launched on Amazon and in Spanish supermarkets.

Brand Identity · Creative Direction · Video Production

Adversent

Brand identity, learning platform and in-house video studio for an advertising education business, bringing a more engaging, streaming-inspired approach to learning.