Amy Hansen Creative

"Get The Look" was a beauty campaign that I concepted, developed and art directed, to provide new marketing initiatives between the larger, seasonal beauty events. Directly speaking to the customer, we gave her beauty application tips and original product advice, which was a unique approach in the current retail advertising. Catalogs, newspaper ads and in-store posters featured a combination of classic beauty shots, playful still photography and customized face illustrations, to attract new costumers and engage with our current clients. 

More is more. Bloomingdale's HOT campaign was a seasonal initiative that traditionally showcased our best brands and our best key items. As the economy became less and less stabile, our marketing department moved away from featuring one key item and instead featured more breadth of assortment within the store and within each brand. As an art director of some of our higher end brands, I responded by displaying multiple products with graphic styling and dramatic photography, to preserve the integrity and luxury of the brands but also appeal to a wider customer base.

After years of discussion, the Bloomingdale's beauty and marketing departments gained the funding and technology to include scent strips in our own booklet. This holiday fragrance insert featured scent strips imbedded in each spread. Etheral lighting, combined with metallic backgrounds created beautiful holiday imagery, while still allowing for extra negative space to place the scent strips. Careful coordination and collaboration between myself, the photographer and the pre-press department made this piece a creative, production and commercial success. 

This Fall collection of Lafayette 148 was inspired by the architecture of New York, with bold stripes, linear piping, asymmetrical shaping and geometric patterns. To reflect the graphic spirit of the collection and provide a modern contrast to the luxurious fabric, we concepted, scouted and shot in this downtown Manhattan location. Images were paired with minimal, modern design, for the pre-fall catalog, online images, email blasts and postcards. 

This luxury resort booklet accompanied the holiday catalogs and featured designer shoes, handbags and fine jewelry. I incorporated the season's palette of icy blues and added high contrast lighting and shadowy elements, to highlight the sparkle of the holiday season and hint at atmospheric, exotic locations. 

The overarching theme of Bloomingdale's spring campaign was "vision," highlighting fashion visionaries and a new vision for spring. I art directed beauty and fashion accessories campaigns with various ethereal and surreal themes. To attract the customer with aspirational, dream-like beauty, I created this story for the Beauty Benefits campaign, featuring reflective mirrors, soft lighting and selective focus. 

Bloomingdale's marketing requested a lighter approach to Valentine's Day this season. I responded by concepting and art directing this flirty, colorful catalog, with pink and silver backgrounds, bright and directional lighting, graphic compositions, and playful typography. 

Historically, Bloomingdale's high-end brands wanted to attract the customer with their GWP (Gifts with Purchase); however, many did not want to feature their gifts on their catalog pages, advertisements and in-store posters, which would take away from their new merchandise and perhaps lower their brand image. To keep both the vendors' and Bloomingdale's upscale image intact, I concepted and art directed this separate accordion booklet, which was stitched within catalogs and also printed as a stand-alone piece. Covers displayed striking, abstract product, while inside pages featured GWPs with bold lighting and Bloomingdale's signature black & white checkerboard backgrounds. 

This Spring fragrance story gives life to the phrase, "April showers." Splashes and mists of water send lively energy to the bottles while dramatic vignetting adds a luxury element, highlighting new brands and enhancing the classics. Concepted and art directed within the larger Beauty Benefits campaign, this story gave a dynamic break between other sections of the catalog, newspaper ads and in-store displays. 

Bloomingdale's celebrated an art theme in this Spring season's overarching campaign. This accessories story, featured in the HOT catalog, in-store and advertising campaign, was one of my most amusing and hands-on art direction projects. After concepting and sketching each page with the photographer, I directed and commissioned a paper artist—and even helped to style and assemble hundreds of paper pieces around our designer handbag and shoes on the shoot. 

At Lafayette 148, I collaborated with digital designers to create content for website homepages, banners, email blasts and social media. In addition to art directing out-takes from the Spring and Fall print campaigns, I created original fashion images, still shots and animated gifs for the digital presence. These featured new collections, holiday campaigns, new fabrics, custom tailoring and styling ideas, for web, mobile and Instagram.

This holiday campaign featured Bloomingdale's best brands across the designer categories of shoes, handbags, fine jewelry and home decor. I concepted and art directed the shoot with strong, high-contrast lighting, heroic angles, and pops of bright red, to bring a sense of luxury and holiday spirit to this high end merchandise. 

For this pre-fall Bloomingdale's campaign, the tagline was "Spotlight On," which featured new brands, new merchandise and revered classics. I art directed various fashion accessories, cosmetics and fragrances with a strong back light and a black frame, to pop the merchandise in a heroic, graphic manner. The campaign was featured in catalog, newspaper and magazine advertisements, as well as in-store displays. 

I art directed this holiday fragrance story, in collaboration with the special projects department at Bloomingdale's and Totem Creative. Using the season's bright palette and graphic patterns, I sketched and organized each page to create an even flow and balance solid backgrounds with these eye catching ones. I worked carefully with the production department, stylist and photographer, to create and refine each background—in the pre-production phase, on the photo shoot and in the post-production phases—to alternately enhance and contrast the bottles' shapes and colors.  

Foundation makeup is an important base to any beauty look, most notably the "no make-up" look, which necessitates a perfect, flawless match to skin color. Brands have increased the shades offered within their liquid and powder categories to appeal to the widest customer base. To showcase the color range in this cosmetics story, I worked closely with the on-set stylist to find various graphic ways to display the product as smudges, linear backgrounds or geometric patterns. Dramatic photography completed the dynamic and sensual quality of the story. 

The Spring collection of Lafayette 148 featured a vast array of white dresses and shirts, shiny pastels and sheer details. To reflect the lightness of the collection, we concepted, scouted and shot in this rooftop and sun-drenched penthouse in the East Village of Manhattan. Modern design with light typography, completed the airy feeling of the season, for the spring catalog, website features and email blasts.

I art directed this cosmetics story for the Spring Beauty Benefits campaign, as a more editorial approach to the catalog, advertisements and in-store collateral. We shot the products on a clean, white background with snappy lighting and playful compositions, to create a sense of movement and bold impact. Fun quotes and helpful tips were designed in a magazine style layout, and fashion-forward typography completed the editorial feel. 

The flagship store of Bloomingdale's at 59th Street upgraded their beauty floor in 2010. Not only were there major renovations to the physical store, the "makeover" also attracted new contemporary and upscale vendors, such as Armani, Chantecaille, Space NK, a Bumble & Bumble salon and a Shu Uemera eyelash bar. To bring public awareness to the store re-opening, we needed to create an unexpected, eye-catching campaign. I capitalized on the iconic checkerboard of Bloomingdale's first floor, by ideating and art directing a checkerboard makeup concept, for both beauty and still life. The images were spread across the Beauty Benefits catalog, in-store signage, phone booths, taxi cabs, buses, booklets, posters and newspaper ads for each brand. The campaign was a marketing and commercial success, far exceeding the financial plan.