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Owner / Principal Illustrator + Designer

Creative & Design

PROFILE  OVERVIEW

I'm a freelance illustrator + designer living on Miami Beach with over 18 years of combined experience in stylized illustration + communication design. I specialize in developing branded advertising + marketing, visual merchandising + retail environments, creating merchandise and manufacturing printed products and all types of graphic collateral.

SPECIALIZING IN APPLIED CREATIVE CRITICAL
THINKING + ANALYTICAL PROBLEM-SOLVING:

Taking contract disputes between DirecTV + AMC’s hit TV show "The Walking Dead" and synthesizing an abstract and complex negotiation into a funny commercial that helped defuse tensions and retain customer loyalty.

ADEPT AT VALUE-ENGINEERING A PROJECT -  DELIVERING QUANTIFIABLE SALES RESULTS
UNDER A TIGHT DEADLINE, OFTEN WITH LIMITED RESOURCES + BUDGETS:

Creating custom licensed illustrations for innovative product lines with clients like Hasbro, Crayola + Zuca - helping them identify trends, forecast + predict popular merchandise topics and develop illustrations that maximize unit sales.

METICULOUSLY ORGANIZED AT COLLECTING + ANALYZING PROJECT
RESEARCH TO CONCEPTUALIZE + INITIATE NEW PROJECT IDEAS:

Demonstrate an in-depth ability for imaginative + cognitive flexibility - attracting client projects from Google Labs, Goodby Silverstein &amp; Partners and DC Shoes [Europe] that incorporate handcrafted illustrative techniques and showcase the latest color + design trends to deliver highly impactful project content.

POSSESSING EXCEPTIONAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT SKILLS -
DISPLAYING A PROFICIENCY AT COORDINATING + PLANNING PROJECTS:

Accomplished a variety of duties simultaneously - including the development of guidelines, directives and communication for a team of 200+ retail managers across 45 retail locations and managing projects for an in-house profit earning print center in a corporate environment for Macy’s, Inc.

JOB DESCRIPTION
Established a design studio for the creation of vector illustrations, handcrafted typography, digital + screen printed apparel, character development, specialty packaging design, animation and immersive retail spaces. Partner with a wide array industries including Advertising Agency Creative Directors, Toy + Game Designers, Sports Franchises, Retail Merchandise Art Buyers, and Entertainment Industry Project Managers. Develop products and services for large corporate clients like Adobe, Hasbro, Van's "Warped Tour," Crayola, Lionsgate Entertainment + YouTube.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

EDITORIAL ILLUSTRATIONS:
• Illustrated full-color cover for the print edition of the Seattle Times' Seahawks NFL Preview + created an animated online package which increased online viewership by 32%.

MERCHANDISE DEVELOPMENT:
• Designed a custom line of limited edition, licensed, retro 8-bit character illustrations for the consumer bag line Zuca Inc, an artist collaboration of children's rolling bags with a 99% successful sell-through rate.

• Collaborated with Hasbro Toys to create game illustrations and graphics for their new Cuponk “Monsterosity," the Monsters of Rock themed dunking/game. The release of this new type of "off the board” game playing experience engaged games consumers and contributed to a 2% [$387.0 million] increase in the company's overall third-quarter sales in the games and puzzles category.

MARKETING + PROMOTIONAL DESIGN:
• Developed "The Walking Dead" themed zombie character animation for a DirecTV commercial during a contract dispute with the AMC network.

• Illustrating a series of characters for Google’s YouTube "Geek Week" event that was used in online advertising and a series of digital wallpaper and stickers to promote the channel’s team of celebrity streamers.

JOB DESCRIPTION

Collaborate with clients to conceptualize, organize and design branded packaging, product advertising, marketing deliverables and special event projects for both businesses and individuals. Generate new business by providing research and development (R+D) of emerging technology in print manufacturing and contemporary consumer design trends to offer clients cutting-edge products and services and improve organizational performance.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS
• New Business Development - acquired UK based firm, Harding Retail as a client, designing + printing a $330,000 graphics package for the renovation of 10 gift shops across Carnival Cruise Line's fleet of ships in the US + Caribbean.

• Partner with clients to pitch ideas for specific projects, educate them on the latest techniques + materials and create rapid prototypes of their products to help them envision the final project. These additional quantifiable details increased the bottom line for new business and expanded sales with some clients as much as +15%.

• Developed a branded style-guide and crafted a retail environment for a family-owned heritage brand, updating their identity to help secure VC funding for a line of franchised bakeries in South Florida.

• Devised a method for translating highly technical source material and concepts into user-friendly directives that educate the company's workforce to increase resources, streamline manufacturing and bring new customer products + services to market faster.

Creative Consultant + Lead Designer

JOB DESCRIPTION

Created and executed visual merchandising spaces + immersive retail environments for 45 retail locations across Florida + Puerto Rico for all youth based soft-lines including, Junior Women, Teens + Tweens, Infants + Children, Boys sizes 8-20 and Young Men.

Developed all aspects of a project, from conceptualization through installation, creating visual and tactile retail experiences using merchandising graphics + illustrations, vendor signage + sales collateral, props + mannequins, point of purchase displays + fixtures, event packaging and environmental user experiences.

Supervised the creative manufacturing of printed projects for a team of corporate visual designers and divisional creative groups. Managed quarterly print budgets by allocating project funding, coordinated scheduling of the in-house offset printing and provided company-wide design + print production support in trends, sales, vendor and specialty projects.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS
• Established a centralized in-house print facility, using off-set printing presses, an internal POS sale sign system and several small press digital printers, leading to the reduction of departmental print outsourcing by 35% and a digital print production savings of over $50K per year. Due to the success of the divisional print facility, as a cost savings resource, the in-house print facility expanded from serving 45 retail locations into all Macy’s divisions, distributing visual collateral to 750 retail locations. The success of the print facility helped the division secure additional capital funding from other divisions for additional expansion projects.

• Provided daily support for over 200+ Visual Merchandising Managers and support staff in 45 retail locations, with custom designed digital and printed guidelines, presentations, and internal communication directives for various marketing and special events, sales, graphics, special events packages, visual merchandising fixture programs + standards, and store planning renovations.

• Provided design, print production and coordination of a 5 person design team to develop visual collateral packages for a variety of luxury ready-to-wear + cosmetic vendor branded shops. These in-house printed vendor projects increased private label business by 20-40%, helped create an alternative revenue stream and expanded departmental budgets for additional project support in other families of business.

Sr. Visual Merchandising Designer + InHouse Print Coordinator

John Lacko is an Owner / Principal Illustrator + Designer at Lacko Illustration in Miami Beach, FL.

John Lacko

John Lacko

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Education history

International Fine Arts College