GWFG
Seven years. The school you don’t put on a resume… but should.
As Lead Designer embedded inside Golden West Food Group, I owned the creative on one of the most iconic licensing partnerships in US food retail:
Jack Daniel’s. Forty SKUs. National rollouts.
Direct collaboration with the CMO and Brown-Forman’s brand team. Every label, every campaign, every POS had to feel like Old No.7, not like a licensed extension.
Beyond JD, Cinnabon, Jack Link’s, and a portfolio of high-volume CPG brands built across multiple formats, production realities, and retail environments. Where speed, clarity, and production discipline became part of the creative process.
Role: Lead Designer – Jack Daniel’s Licensing & CPG Brand Systems
Scope: Packaging Design, Brand Architecture, Retail Rollout, Production Artwork, Sales Materials
40 SKUS. ONE QUESTION:
HOW DO YOU PUT A LEGEND IN A BOX WITHOUT KILLING IT?
Seven years. Forty SKUs. One brief: don’t kill the legend.
As Lead Designer, I partnered directly with the CMO and Brown-Forman’s global team to build a visual system that could stretch Jack Daniel’s into the food category without losing a single drop of what made it iconic. Packaging, POS, national campaigns, every touchpoint had to feel like Old No.7 on a Friday night. Not a corporate extension. The real thing.
The result: a scalable brand architecture that drove +9.4% product growth and +11.2% retail expansion across US chains.
The Challenge
In high-volume CPG, design has to do more than look good.
It has to communicate quickly, follow strict production requirements, adapt across formats, and remain consistent across multiple brands, teams, and timelines.
The work had to balance:
• Brand clarity
• Shelf impact
• Production accuracy
• Regulatory and nutrition requirements
• Cost and manufacturing constraints
• Fast internal and client approvals
The goal was always the same: make the work clear, scalable, and production-ready.
BRANDS I WORKED WITH
CONTEXT
Golden West Food Group was where I learned how brand and packaging systems behave at scale.
Across seven years, I worked on a wide range of food, beverage, and CPG brands, translating business needs into packaging, retail materials, presentations, and production-ready assets.
The work moved fast.
The constraints were real.
And every design decision had to survive production, cost, timing, and retail expectations.
WHERE SYSTEM THINKING WAS BUILT
Seven years working inside a high-volume CPG environment, developing brands across retail,
private label and national distribution.
ROLE
Worked across branding, packaging and product development as the creative lead.
From concept to production-ready execution.
Involved in the creation of multiple brands and product lines across different market segments.
My role covered both creative development and production execution, often moving from concept to final files across tight timelines.
I worked on:
• Brand identity development
• Packaging systems
• Food and beverage labels
• Retail and sales materials
• Presentation decks
• Production-ready artwork
• Multi-format brand applications
The value was not only in creating individual pieces, but in building repeatable visual logic that could work across products, formats, and teams.
WHAT THIS EXPERIENCE TAUGHT ME
Working at scale fundamentally changes how you approach design.
Speed, clarity, and systems become non-negotiable. You’re no longer designing for presentation, you’re designing for production and performance. Managing multiple brands simultaneously requires structure, where consistency, hierarchy, and repeatable frameworks are essential, not optional.
Every project operates within real constraints, from regulatory requirements and nutritional labeling to cost, production limitations, and tight timelines, and the work has to perform within those conditions. Collaboration is constant, working closely with marketing, product development, production, and leadership to ensure alignment from concept to shelf.
A foundation in CPG design built through speed, systems, and production reality.
