Mark Engblom

Design & illustrate projects for Gartner Studios’ diverse portfolio of “social celebration” products such as retail stationery, licensed digital designs, greeting cards, party decor, and baking products. Since early 2013, my primary focus has been Gartner’s Tylina Foods division of specialty baking products, such as the Duff Goldman line of baking mixes, decor, and tools. Responsibilities include product development, design retail packaging & POP displays, art direction for food styling & photography, copywriting, sales & marketing materials, social media, pre-flight print production, and attending press checks.

Create concepts of three-dimensional theming elements for presentations to clients. Once approved, created detailed turnaround drawings and color palettes for in-house sculptors, fabricators, and painters to follow. Other responsibilities included creating bid proposal decks, project photo documentation, and promotional materials.

Designed and illustrated a variety of products for the scrapbooking and paper craft market. Products included pattern papers, die-cut ephemera, stickers, stamps, albums, fabrics, and packaging. Additional responsibilities included pre-press print production, copywriting, and promotional materials.

Collaborated with educational content and marketing teams to design educational and decorative products for the classroom and other learning environments. Product families included activity books, learning charts, banners, bulletin board sets, games, stickers, flash cards, trimmers, and posters.

Worked closely with teams of educational software producers, engineers, and writers to develop character design, character animation, digital set design, backgrounds and interface artwork through the use of both traditional and computer-based graphics and animation tools.

Co-managed all aspects of design and production for a wide variety of child-focused products and promotions for Mello Smello’s four internal divisions. Prior to my art director position, I served as a Staff Cartoonist/Designer (March 1990 through December 1994), designing and illustrating products, promotions and POP displays from concept through printing.