Grace Denise Horner

Work Experience

///////////////////

Valon | Senior Marketing and Creative Strategist

Jan 2024 - Present, Remote

• Spearheaded comprehensive marketing strategies encompassing planning, execution, and assessment to drive brand growth and market penetration.

• Directed the creation and implementation of all design initiatives, ensuring alignment with overarching marketing goals and brand identity.

• Curated and managed a dynamic marketing content calendar, orchestrating timely and engaging campaigns across various platforms. The calendar optimized content distribution and maintained consistent brand visibility.

• Drove brand development and positioning initiatives, working closely with teams to maintain brand consistency across all touchpoints and customer interactions.

• Utilized data-driven insights and performance metrics to refine strategies continually, optimized campaigns, and drove measurable results in brand engagement and ROI.

• Spearheaded innovation by exploring new creative approaches, emerging platforms, and technologies, ensuring the brand remains at the forefront of industry trends.

• Provided leadership in conceptualizing and directing the creation of impactful, multi-channel campaigns, ensuring alignment with brand identity and marketing objectives.

• Developed and lead the implementation of comprehensive marketing strategies aligned with business objectives, leveraging a deep understanding of market trends, consumer behavior, and competitive landscapes.

Valon | Senior Visual Designer

Nov 2022 - Jan 2024, Remote

• Lead the enablement of the broader Valon organization in creating cohesive and consistent brand experiences across multiple channels and touch points through the development of self-serve tools, templates / libraries, request processes, communications, etc.

• Developed the visual style, illustration style and all visual design guidelines for the Valon brand and established a variety of brand libraries for the cross-functional team use including: a stock image library and illustration library.

• Lead cross-discipline collaboration as it related to the brand experience from the Sales team to Content and Product teams, etc.

• Advocated for brand, design, media and conversion best practices.

• Built and nurtured strong relationships with key partners and stakeholders throughout marketing, sales, and product; developing trust and enabling a cohesive cross-functional brand experience.

• Managed all website tasks including: building all new designs, updating old designs, patching back end fixes, and legal updates.

  
  

Clockwise | Brand Designer

May 2022 - Oct 2022, Remote

• Connected and designed assets for print and digital marketing campaigns.

• Assisted in the Clockwise rebrand including the creation of brand libraries and writing documentation on new brand standards to be used by the cross-functional team.

• Presented and articulated the thinking behind my work to key stakeholders.

• Collaborated with copywriters, designers, and marketers to build and maintain visual brand excellence for a wide range of design needs.

• Prioritized, managed and multitasked between different projects and deadlines.

Earnest | Visual Designer

March 2020 - May 2022, Remote

• Concepted and designed assets for print marketing campaigns as well as web landing pages.  

• Designed video and motion assets for app, web and presentation use.

• Designed templates that created team efficiencies and contributed to the Design System shared by all designers.

• Identified key areas where design can work to meet user and business needs.

• Collaboratively developed visual design strategy, including proposing new styles and standards.

• Defined scope of design work for individual projects.

• Utilized a strong user understanding, and knowledge of business capabilities to develop design features and growth experiments

• Evangelized and advocated for design thinking, practices and principles to junior designers and to the company  

Apple | Visual Designer

March 2019 - March 2020, Sunnyvale, CA (via Kettle Agency)

• Worked via Kettle Agency onsite at Apple creating on-brand design solutions including branding, web, and email design. 

• Designed clean, modern, and pixel-perfect interfaces across platforms utilizing layout, typography, and photo editing skills.

• Maintained design and brand quality from initial brief to final build.

• Used a strong sense of the overall user experience to leverage the strategy of the interaction between new and existing assets on a landing page.

• Worked with Apple across multiple channels, including web, email and events utilizing a 360 approach to branding.

eBay | Designer

Oct 2017 - Feb 2019, San Francisco, CA (via Feed Agency)

• Worked with the eBay team designing their quarterly asset updated and brand innovation projects.

• Designed on site marketing collateral consisting of: display banners, landing pages, emails, decks, one shelters and other marketing materials.

• Pitched creative ideas and design concepts to internal teams and external clients.

• Liaised with clients to explain design thinking and creative process for projects.

• Researched latest design trends and make sure that the eBay brand was at the forefront of design trends.

• Collaborated with fellow copywriters, designers and account managers to concept and develop marketing and advertising campaigns for clients. 

Blurb | Junior Graphic Designer

Aug 2016 - June 2017, San Francisco, CA

• Assisted in the design of promotional emails in alignment with overarching brand strategy and quarterly campaign goals to improve customer retention and increase net bookings.

• Collaborated with team members to create cohesive assets for social media and paid ads to support marketing campaigns.

• Shot product photography for a variety of marketing assets used in emails, blogs and on the website. 

Education

////////////

2017| University of San Francisco

Major: Design
Minor: Fine Arts