Joe R. Vasquez

Joe R. Vasquez

Associate Creative Director | Brand, Performance & Storytelling

Hands-on creative leader with deep experience building brand systems, directing campaigns, and translating complex, trust-sensitive information into clear customer-facing stories. Strong in shaping the core idea, building the creative system around it, and staying close to the work through production, iteration, feedback, and final delivery.

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Details

Immediate capabilities

  • Integrated Campaigns: Social, Email, Web, Video/Motion, Presentations & Print
  • Consumer, E-Commerce, Subscription-Aware & Customer-Journey Design
  • Creative Direction, Art Direction, Design, Writing/Message Framing & Prototyping
  • Campaign Systems, Lifecycle Assets, Templates & High-Velocity Iteration
  • AI-Assisted Image, Video, Motion, Storytelling & Concept-Development Workflows
  • Team Direction, Partner Management, Creative Critique & Remote Collaboration

Experience

Professional Services Design Consultant - Senior Brand Designer & Creative Lead

2021 – Present

Constant Contact · Loveland, CO

Creative Leadership, Brand & Performance-Aware Design

  • Develop brand strategy, visual direction, and campaign creative for 25-40+ annual clients across e-commerce, wellness, financial services, real estate, professional services, and other customer-facing categories.
  • Translate business goals, audience needs, complex services, and incomplete briefs into clear creative platforms, campaign systems, and visual stories across acquisition, engagement, and customer communication.
  • Design and direct work across web, landing pages, email, social, paid/promotional assets, presentations, event materials, print, and motion graphics.
  • Balance brand expression with practical performance needs including hierarchy, message clarity, offer framing, customer journey, channel requirements, and a clear next action.

Campaign Systems, Lifecycle & Iteration

  • Build reusable asset systems, templates, guidelines, and campaign toolkits that improve brand consistency, speed, and creative quality across high-volume deliverables.
  • Create social-first, email, landing-page, and promotional creative designed to support audience understanding, engagement, and conversion-oriented business goals.
  • Use feedback, client outcomes, channel needs, and performance-minded creative hypotheses to refine messaging, hierarchy, visual direction, and campaign variations.
  • Create motion graphics and video content using After Effects, with light-to-moderate video editing capability.

Creative Ownership & Team Direction

  • Own briefs, timelines, feedback, approvals, and delivery across 25-40 simultaneous projects in a fast-moving client-services environment.
  • Present creative rationale, guide stakeholder feedback, and align clients and creative partners around the strategic purpose behind the work.
  • Coordinate photographers, videographers, freelancers, print vendors, and external partners from creative briefing through final delivery.
  • Mentor junior designers, establish practical creative standards, and support a 76% client retention rate through dependable execution and clear communication.

AI-Assisted Creative Practice

  • Use Claude, Codex, Gemini, and Runway for prompt development, research synthesis, concept exploration, image and motion direction, message framing, creative variation, and production support.
  • Apply AI to expand exploration and accelerate iteration while maintaining human judgment over health-related tone, strategy, accuracy, brand fit, and final craft.
  • Completed Vanderbilt University's Prompt Engineering Certification in 2024 and continue building hands-on fluency with AI-assisted visual and motion workflows.

Creative Director - Brand Strategy, Identity Systems & Campaign Design

2015 – Present

Independent · Denver, CO

Rez.Church: “Whatever It Takes” Capital Campaign

  • Directed positioning, visual identity, and creative execution for a campaign that raised $7M against a $4.5M goal, building the system across 15+ touchpoints including web, social, motion, presentations, environmental graphics, apparel, and print.
  • Hit a $2M funding milestone on schedule to meet city and state permitting deadlines; church attendance grew from roughly 10,000 to more than 20,000 once the completed facility accommodated the larger congregation.

WildSong Ranch: Brand Strategy & Identity System

  • Directed brand strategy and visual identity for a 56-acre equestrian facility in Longmont, CO, launching from no existing brand to a recognized standard for natural horse boarding, holistic training, and equine-assisted education.
  • Built a scalable identity system extending from a carved-rock entrance sign to apparel, stationery, and content, supporting 50%+ growth in ridership and 35%+ growth in boarding within the first two years.

Daymaker Gifts: Premium Brand Strategy & Customer Growth System

  • Developed brand strategy, visual identity, and a customer experience system across packaging, apparel, and social content for a curated gifting business, from initial concept through nationwide growth.
  • Grew the brand from a part-time hobby to a profitable retail operation surpassing $100K in revenue within two years, complete with a physical storefront and staff.

Beyond Travel Explorations: Brand Identity & Visual System

  • Directed brand identity and visual system for an eco-luxury adventure travel curator, repositioning a general travel agent into a premium South American travel specialist commanding a higher rate.
  • Partnered with the client's web agency on art direction and social strategy; the repositioning helped drive an acquisition of the business by another travel agency.

Subaru of Loveland: Brand Identity & Visual System

  • Directed brand identity for a regional auto dealership, developing a heart-and-mountain mark that ties local community identity (Loveland's iconic heart sculptures) to Subaru's national Love Promise positioning.
  • Delivered a scalable system across apparel and customer-facing materials, reinforcing the dealership's standing as a Colorado community anchor.

Additional Brand Work

  • Created brand systems, campaigns, web assets, social and email content, event materials, presentations, and customer-facing communications for hospitality, community, and service organizations, including a full brand refresh and 12+ program identities for a Northern Colorado community organization that supported 50% event attendance growth.

Skills & tools

  • Creative Direction & Strategy: Art direction, brand systems, campaign concepts, messaging collaboration, creative rationale
  • Health & Trust Storytelling: Complex-to-clear communication, human tone, customer education, visual hierarchy
  • Brand & Performance: Campaign systems, acquisition and lifecycle assets, conversion-aware design across social, email, and web
  • Consumer Journeys: E-commerce, subscription-aware communication, retention-minded lifecycle design
  • Production & Design Tools: Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign | After Effects, Runway | PowerPoint, Keynote, Google Slides
  • AI & Emerging Tools: Claude, Codex, Gemini, Runway, prompt engineering, AI-assisted creative workflows
  • Team & Collaboration: Creative reviews, mentoring, briefs, standards, vendor and partner coordination, remote collaboration

Education & training

  • Digital Marketing Certified | HubSpot Academy | Issued Aug 2026
  • Prompt Engineering Certification | Vanderbilt University (Feb 2024)
  • The Futur Academy | Brand Strategy Facilitation | Messaging | Logo Design
  • BS, Business Management | DeVry University, Dallas, TX

Awards & recognition

  • 2026 Communicator Award - Distinction, Employee & Internal Communications | Academy of Interactive & Visual Arts (AIVA) | Issued Jun 2026
  • Christianity Today | Top 16 Mega-Church Brand Design Competition
  • IBM | Rocky Mountain Women's Network Logo Competition, Winner
  • Concero | “Bring on the Future” Award for Outstanding Leadership