Melissa Harty

Melissa Harty

Creative Director in New York City, She/Her

About

Hi, I’m a creative leader with a passion for crafting impactful design that connect with audiences and deliver results.

As a problem-solver, I leverage my deep understanding of customer insights and business needs to unlock innovative solutions that span across UX, product, social, video, experiential, and brand design.

Client list: New York Fashion Week, BMW, Lexus, Afterpay, Amazon, PayPal, Marriott, Pepsi, Coke, Visa, Mastercard, Etihad, Glamour & People Magazines

Work Experience

2017 — Now
Creative Design Director at Endeavor, IMG
New York City

Developed and executed comprehensive brand positioning, content strategy, and creative campaigns for global brands and properties, including: New York Fashion Week, Afterpay, Amazon, PayPal, Visa, Mastercard, Marriott, BMW, Lexus, Pepsi.

  • Relaunched Fashion x Music brand, MADE, featuring musical performances by NAS and Parris Goebel and a marketplace with 17 designers. Created brand experiences for PayPal earning 4.1 billion global impressions.

  • Established Lowe’s as the #1 brand of Fashion Week with over 1 billion press impressions and 16 million social impressions. 360° campaign included UX/UI design, social, event and retail experience, project featured in New York Times Top 10 “Year in Pictures”.

  • Executed a NYC takeover campaign for Afterpay, featuring the first-ever fashion show at the Empire State Building, full-day consumer shopping festival and a white paper discussion presented by Congresswoman Maloney.

  • Built new Tennis + Fashion platform, talent including Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova and James Blake. Designed brand identity, custom content, social promotion, and event that garnered 519 million impressions.

  • Led brand website and mobile app relaunch by crafting the UX visual language, developing wireframes and user flows, iterating through prototypes, and conducting user testing to ensure an engaging experience.

2016 — 2017
Creative Director at Time Inc.
New York

Built evolution of company identity and designed materials adopted by 600+ employees. Managed creative for beauty, style, retail & entertainment categories across 32 brands. Worked with agencies and cross-discipline teams to ensure best-in-class branding.

  • Led new company strategy and positioning by weaving together market research and social insights. Oversaw copy direction and design for global campaigns. Presented materials in company-wide training sessions.

  • Designed UX vision and UI guidelines for product showcasing video capabilities. Managed product strategy, conducted robust testing, embraced user insights and worked with engineering team to implement.

  • Increased company-wide efficiency by 15% by developing partnerships with stakeholders across UX, PM, and Engineering, to support the product road map of a custom-built creative workflow  system in Salesforce.

  • Optimized sales efforts by visualizing full spectrum of funnel conversion, drove future of AD product offerings resulting in first-of-its-kind approach.

  • Activated brand marketing campaigns across multiple verticals leveraging strategic creative approach for digital and off-line programs valued between $2 million to $20 million.

2014 — 2016
Design Director at People Magazine
New York City

Spear-headed native AD guidelines and implementation for web and created playbook for still and video content creation. Redesigned brand guidelines & marketing materials.

  • Responsible for $3.5 million yearly revenue of content and new business wins. Sold through content ideas to Olay through storytelling and white-boarding of concept/execution. Directed/produced multiple photo and video shoots setting the agency’s benchmark for successful partnerships.

  • Led consumer-facing campaign for signature “Sexiest Man Alive” franchise, designed the largest out of home Times Square billboard. Activated real-time social media, site launch, print/digital units.

  • Leveraged data to inform design decisions with A/B testing to maximize KPIs

2005 — 2014
Art Director, Assoc. AD, Sr. Designer at Glamour Magazine
New. York City

Worked in 8-person in-house creative agency creating first-of-its-kind experiential executions supported by print and digital media. Developed trade, consumer-facing & advertising campaigns for print, out-of-home & experiential.

  • Awarded “2012 Marketer of the Year” for exceptional product execution.

  • Led UX/UI design & photo shoot for retail client, generating +370% sales.

  • Developed creative for first-to-market US experience, partnering with C.O. Bigelow to bring mWallet technology to 17 beauty & health advertisers via shoppable wall, featured on CNN.

  • Launched first blogger network, identifying and retaining 16 emerging fashion/beauty bloggers. Developed campaign, editorial, and activation strategies across online channels and events.

  • Designed campaign, content, and engagement tactics for new iOS app Glamour Friends & Fans app, featured in New York Times.

  • Directed seven custom shoppable videos featuring beauty brands like L’Oréal, generating new business from YSL & Lancôme.

  • Designed social-first programs, partnerships, and managed live streaming of video content for Glamour’s Google+ Hangouts, seen on Mashable.

  • Build event collateral for signature franchise “Woman of the Year” at Carnegie Hall.

Volunteering

2020 — 2022
Board Member at Smith College Club NYC
New York City
2009 — 2011