L'Oréal Professional Products

The brief

In-house art director across seven professional brands — Redken, Matrix, Biolage and four more — together representing roughly $1B in annual sales. Three things, always running in parallel: keep the portfolio looking modern and consistently professional year over year, run periodic whole-brand redesigns to stay competitive in a crowded category, and guarantee that what was approved on screen actually showed up on the bottle.

I was promoted in: in-house freelancer, then junior designer, then art director.

The work

Touched every aspect of packaging across the seven brands. New product launches, full new lines, whole-brand refreshes, day-to-day SKU work in between, and close partnership with brand creative teams to make sure each brand’s identity carried through onto pack rather than getting smoothed away in production.

Approximate scale, per year:

4–5 new individual launches on the bigger brands; 1–2 on the smaller ones.
1–2 new product lines on the bigger brands. Each line typically spanned 4–5 retail sizes plus minis and bulk formats.
A couple hundred SKU touches in total.
3–4 trips to printers and producers — actual press checks, not PDF approvals.

Across my tenure, at least a dozen full-brand redesigns. Several brands went through more than one; the rough cadence on a given brand was every four to five years.

Redken-2024-EU-SEQBI-Silver-Strong-BACKBAR-Group-2-RGB — Redken Acidic Bonding Concentrate group Holographic foil labels, marble + sun. A whole regimen sized and laid out as a system.

Redken-2024-Color-Gels-10-Hero-1-RGB — Redken Color Gels 10-min hero Precise, technical, almost editorial product photography. The professional shelf done right.

Redken-2024-All-Soft-Scientific-Scientific-Group-Shot-6-EU_RGB — Redken All Soft on a warm gold ground with floating molecules. Brand world expressed through staging, not chrome.

Redken Shades EQ Gloss in mid-splash. The "gloss" promise made literal — a single SKU shot doing the work of a whole campaign.

Matrix-2024-NA-A-Curl-Can-Dream-Product-In-Hand-Gel-Mask-Oil-RGB — Matrix "A Curl Can Dream" — three hands holding three SKUs against marigold. Bolder, more pop-forward voice for the Matrix audience.

Matrix "Food For Soft" — overhead avocado + green water still life. Same brand, different mood: ingredient-led, playful.

Matrix Insta-Cure Build-A-Bond on hot pink with foam. Active care positioning, with the typography doing real work.

Redken Acidic Grow Full System Full regimen in teal + holographic. A redesigned line shown the way it'll appear at backbar.

Biolage portfolio architecture The whole SKU library staged together on celadon. Proof of the consistency exercise.

Biolage Full Rescue brand-system spread The design as it lived in the brand book, not just on shelf. "De-stress, Re-store, Re-fortify."

On press, on purpose

The sleeper detail of the role was the press-floor visits. Approving a layout in a meeting room and seeing it actually print are two different things — there are days the line can’t hit a specific color or pattern and someone needs to be in the building to fix it. I made sure that someone was me. Medium-literacy isn’t an aesthetic claim; it’s something you earn at a press check.

What I’m proudest of

Two things, weighted equally.

The diplomatic wins. Maintained good working relationships with people who weren’t always easy, often by gently coaxing them around to positions that were necessary but uncomfortable. Pushed back on choices that would hurt recyclability — advocacy for better outcomes within the constraints of CPG, not a polemic against the category.

The craft win. Took a couple of brands with disjointed visual identities and pulled the broader portfolio toward something that read both premium and professional, brand by brand, year over year. Most of that work isn’t visible as a single moment — it shows up in the consistency between the shots above.