KRISTEN BJAASTAD

CREATIVE :

DESIGN

BRAND

UX

Summary

Award winning design specialist with 10+ years in the field of brand development,  UX design and marketing creative. Team leader with experience recruiting and mentoring design talent, building teams to meet business need. An experienced practitioner with 'hands on' skills to pitch in when needed. Extensive experience working along side technology teams ensuring correct design implementation. Ruthless focus on improving the customer experience on every project.

Creative Skills

Creative direction
Brand design and development
UX/UI Design
Wireframing
Storyboarding
Motion design direction
Social creative
Film/video direction
DR and CRM creative

People Skills

Creative team management
Creative recruitment
Stakeholder management up to C-suite
Presentation skills
Workshop and ideation leadership
Agile Scrum experience

Toolkit

Adobe Creative Suite
Adobe Aftereffects and Premier
Adobe Ilustrator
Powerpoint and Keynote
Webflow for website and prototyping
Sketch, Invision

Professional Experience

Design Direction Lead

July 2015 – Present
London Luton, UK 

Creative Lead for an in-house design team working across multiple disciplines   
• Partner with TUI Marketing, CRM and Ecommerce to ensure consistent brand anddrive creativity
• Design governance for all marketing collateral including web, retail and print
• Collaborate with TUI's agencies to to deliver campaign creative that works across all channels
• Drive design strategy across multiple platforms including dynamic CRM, personalised web and print innovation
• Practitioner and advocate for user-centred design methodology within the enterprise

Design Director – Sky Creative

July 2006 – March 2015
London, UK

Digital Art Director for Sky's in-house Creative Agency producing interactive projects for online, product and mobile design Including 360 advertising campaigns and social media creative.  
• UX design: projects include Sky Guide,  iTV products, web and social creative·      
• Director for video and photography including directing shoots for TV Idents and promos      
• Commissioner of copywriters, illustrators, composers and developers    
• Design governance of agency creative and product design  
• Experienced as an embedded Agile scrum team member
• Manage and mentor junior talent

Design Director - Sky News

March 2001 – October 2005
London, UK

Design Director for the Sky News Graphics team, a multi-discipline and fast moving creative department of 25 designers and animators. It was my responsibility to oversee the creative work of all team members, to liaise with news management and editorial staff and to work along side the promo department to deliver all graphic materials for promo creatives. Our work encompassed daily news graphics, large design projects such as general elections and the Iraqi War, re-branding and re-freshing the channel and it associated assets as well as creating sponsorship and promo graphics

HTML CSS certificate course:
Hammersmith & West London College

MFA degree course
School of the Art Institute of Chicago

BFA in Fine Art
Carnegie Mellon University 
Pittsburgh, PA

Awards

2023
Printweek Awards; Innovation of the Year:  Build Your Own TUI Brochure
2014
Media Week Awards; Bronze award: #Watch on Sky 
2013
Promax UK Awards; Channel Identity Silver: Sky Arts
2012
Promax UK Awards; Channel Identity bronze: Sky Arts
2005
Promax Global Awards Gold medal: Sky News Ident
Promax Global Awards; Information design gold: Sky News US Election coverage
Promax Global Awards; Information design silver: Sky News Beijing F1
Promax Global Awards; Information design bronze: Sky News Local UK Elections
2001
New York TV Festival 2001: Best Channel Identity; Sky News Active
2000
Promax Global Award for Virtual Reality Set Design; Sky News Budget 1999