Jessica Huang

Sam’s Club / Dentsu
As the Creative Director for Dentsu Creative on the Sam’s Club account, I led a team of art directors and designers to produce 10+ catalogs a year. Our focus (and passion) was primarily beautiful photography. We worked with some of the most incredible crew to bring these shots to life.

CD: Jessica Huang
ACD: Desiree Espada
Senior ADs: Einat Gilboa, Kasumi Chow, Keilani Rodriguez
Photographers: Colin Price, Ren Fuller, Jennifer Davick, Tara Donne, Priscilla Gragg
Stylists: Amy Lipnis, Stephanie Hanes, Marian Cooper Cairns
Production: Dentsu Creative, Snog Productions

From 2017 to 2018, I worked a redesign of the entire suite of Visit Seattle publications (10 print pieces, with an additional 12 translated versions). The Visit Seattle Official Visitors’ Guide prints twice a year and is the flagship publication. We wanted the new design to capture the better reflect the brand’s values — fun, approachable, beautiful, sophisticated, easy-going. The redesign process was anything but that, but we were thrilled with the results. The magazine went on to win a Folio: Ozzie award for Best Redesign and a Maggie Award for Best Visitor’s Guide. (See the before here.)
Icons Renewed feature illos by Kelly Thompson
Studio shoots by Cody Ulrich and Charity Burggraaf
Into the Wild illos by Lisel Ashlock

The Washington State Visitors’ Guide is one those magazines that always makes me feel like I should get out more. The state truly has everything — mountains and canyons, rainforests and deserts, big cities and small towns, James Beard winners and hole-in-the-wall gems. The challenge of this magazine is trying to highlight as many spectacular parts of the state as possible in never enough pages.
Sensational State feature design by Nate Bullis
Choose Your Own Adventure feature illos by Kelly Thompson
Thumbnail photo by Nolan Calisch

I had seen Edible Seattle on the grocery store newsstands a few times and always picked it up because of the stunning cover photography. Every time, I’d flip through it and end up putting it back down. When I met the owner of the magazine at a farmers market, I begged him to let me redesign it and give it a fresh face. It took nearly two years to wear him down, but he finally brought me on board! Charity Burggraaf, the art director/photo editor for this mag, had been dreaming of this redesign for years, and we were so excited to bring this vision to life. We introduced a few new departments, pushed to include new recipes, and shifted to a more photo-focused design. The design and photography got bolder as the owner warmed up to the new look. (You can see a before version here.)

Washington is producing some of the hottest wines in the world right now, with wine surpassing all agricultural products as the number one export for the state. In 2019, to celebrate their incredible growth over the last two decades, we conceptualized this studio feature to showcase the breadth and depth of Washington wines. We wanted to highlight the number of varieties through the color of the wines. For the 2018 issue, we wanted to give readers a lifestyle cover with a dream, aspirational feature. Want to sip on a bold cabernet in a vineyard at sunset? Me too, let’s go.
Wine glasses shot by Cody Ulrich

The Pearl magazine is a custom publication for the Pearl District Business Association in Portland. The annual holiday gift guide was created to showcase a variety of members and their products in the winter. Previous gift guides included candid shots of shoppers and products on white, but I wanted to change the art direction and give the feature more of a high-end catalogue feeling. 

We could pull whatever we needed to make this happen, the only stipulation was that we had to include a set list of member stores. Thanks to prop stylist/curator extraordinaire Kira Corbin and photographer Scott Rounds, I couldn't be happier with how it turned out.

With such a small page size (8.5" x 5.5") and only five pages of editorial in this Flavor Guide, I wanted to incorporate as much beautiful photography as I could.

Washington's incredible food and drink are some of the biggest attractions for visitors. I wanted the photography to showcase its depth and rich mix of textures.

Photos by Charity Burggraaf, Brooke Fitts

We launched the Official Touring Guide for the Oregon Wine in 2018. The board wanted their magazine to play with and resolve the tension in their brand: premium but down-to-earth, luxe but rustic, beautiful but gritty. We focused on fresh, full-page photography to capture the state’s different wine-growing regions and tried to tell the story from a travel-inspired perspective.

This story, "The Rules of Attraction," discusses how modern marketing has turned into "the relationship era." A brand has to participate in certain courting rituals before it can develop a relationship with a consumer. I wanted to capture the idea of a modern day Cupid's arrow -- something edgy and down-to-earth, with a hint of whimsy. I tried to capture the grittiness of process and the importance of being authentic.

US Bank's wealth management division, The Private Client Reserve, produces a magazine to distribute to its clients. One of their brand standards said we could only use images that showed people from behind, as if the wealth manager was advising them from afar while they enjoyed life. They were slowly starting to shift away from these standards, so we persuaded them to use more geometric and conceptual imagery. We made sure to keep their traditional sense of light and color so the new look felt true to the brand.

This paperback cookbook is the result of years of work by volunteers who gathered traditional recipes from Central American women leaders. This book is sold and on Amazon and by Serrv, a fair trade organization, and proceeds from this cookbook are returned to their communities. 

When the volunteers asked me to elevate the look and feel of their recipes, I knew this was a project I wanted to be part of. I planned the design, chose fonts, set styles, and turned around 106 pages in about three weeks — it was an absolute labor of love.

For the NFIB Small Business Playbook 2016, we didn't want to rehash the 2015 book. But the client could not have been happier with the previous year's product, so we didn't want to stray too far from their expectations. We needed to find a fresh design approach — something that felt related but not repetitive. We kept the chunky, quick tips and takeaways. But we updated the design with a cleaner, more polished look. We traded the hand-drawn art for a hand-drawn typeface, and we used a more vibrant, fuller color palette throughout the book.

2016 Folio: Ozzie Award Honorable Mention, Assocation/Non-Profit (B-to-B) – Supplemental Annual

NFIB's Small Business Playbook was the first of this annual publication. The audience is busy small business owners, so we wanted to give them a keep-piece that was full of quick tips and takeaways. An edgy design that would grab you, and short pieces to keep you reading.

AM&P Excel Award Winner in Promotional Content: Special Report (Print), Silver

Content Marketing Awards Finalist for Best Overall Design-Print, Small Business Playbook

For a short stint, I pitched in and art directed Vail Beaver Creek magazine, a city magazine for one of SagaCity Media's resort markets. Photos by Zach Mahone, Holiday issue design by Hayley Doshay.

Western Publishing Association Maggie Award Finalist for 2017 Best Overall Publication Design

I art-directed Colorado Summit, a city magazine for one the Sagacity Media's mountain resort markets. Photos by Liam Doran and stock, design by Hayley Doshay. Under this design team and the leadership of Editor Ted Katauskas, the magazine won its first award in 2017.

Western Publishing Association Maggie Awards, Winner for 2017 Best Semi-Annual Consumer Magazine, Finalist for Best Editorial Layout

We made an annual destination magazine for this island town's tourism board to use as a promotional tool. We wanted to present the city as a budget-friendly, family-oriented place to visit, while highlighting its charming history and a great beach.

2017 Folio: Eddie & Ozzie Award  Consumer, Full Issue, Travel Honorable Mention

Some of my favorite feature openers from the American Bar Association's Law Practice magazine.