David Day

About David Day

Forty years of thinking hard about brands. Thirty-three of those years I ran David Day Associates, a full-service creative agency with studios in Denver, Omaha, and Chicago. We built brands, designed e-commerce experiences, worked across more industries than I can list without sounding like I\'m padding: packaged goods, healthcare, finance, real estate, manufacturing, food and beverage. The work won a storage unit full of awards, even a Webby (I just like that word). Showcased in Communication Arts. Gave talks. Annoyed critics. Gratifying, all of it. But not the part I think about most. That\'s the people. DDA was a serious training ground, and a lot of the talent that came through there is doing exceptional work now, at agencies, at brands, at companies that didn\'t exist when those people started with us. It didn\'t happen by accident. My approach: raise the bar constantly, set people up to succeed, make them uncomfortable enough to actually get better. Works every time. A few years ago, Omaha Steaks, a DDA client, asked me to come inside. I said yes. I\'m their Senior Director of Creative and Brand. I run the full creative department: designers, copywriters, photographers, video, and content creators. Creative direction across every channel they operate in, paid and organic social, email, television, packaging, environmental, SMS, POS, all of it. Two things I\'m proudest of here. First: the customer insights practice I built from zero. The answers to brand loyalty live inside the customer, not in a conference room. Building the systems to actually hear them changed how this organization thinks. Second: the people work, which doesn\'t have a clean title. A creative department needs a brand whisperer as much as it needs a creative director. Therapist, teacher, translator, the person who stays until it\'s right. I consult directly with senior leadership and the CEO on strategy and storytelling. He\'s called me \"The Tom Brady of Creatives.\" That either means I\'m too old and should retire or that I shouldn\'t retire too soon. I try not to think about it too much. More recently I\'ve been leading AI experimentation and governance at Omaha Steaks. The question that interests me is simple: does it actually improve the work, or does it just make you feel faster? I\'ve worked at expert level in Adobe Creative Cloud for decades. You still have to know what you\'re doing. My aesthetic is exacting. I shoot photography off-hours. I follow contemporary art closely. I have opinions about kerning at 11pm. If any of that sounds useful to you, it probably is.

Experience

1. Senior Director Creative and Brand

   Omaha Steaks

   Jun 2020 — Present · US

   Omaha Steaks had been a DDA client for years. We did both brand strategy and e-commerce UX work for them. When they asked me to join the company, I said yes.I oversee the full creative department: designers, copywriters, photographers, video, and content creators. Creative direction spans every channel the company operates in: paid and organic social, email and SMS/MMS, print, television (full production from concept through post), packaging, environmental design, POS, websites, presentations, and PR activations. I also help direct content creators and influencer deliverables.One of the things I’m most satisfied with here is building the customer insights practice from the ground up. I believed coming in that the answers to brand loyalty and marketing effectiveness live inside the customer, not in a conference room. Building the systems to actually hear customers changed how the organization thinks about brand. That work matters.I led the UI/UX team for several years, overseeing e-commerce experience design, and continue to consult with senior leadership and the CEO on brand strategy. More recently I’ve taken on leading some of our AI experimentation, adoption, and governance. Not in a theoretical way. We’re finding specific, repeatable applications that improve creative output and reduce the tedious parts of the process. I’m also the person making sure we do it thoughtfully and ethically.

Education

• Art Institute of Colorado

  Graphic Design

• Community College of Denver

  Unfinished, Graphic Design

Skills

• Environmental Design
• Corporate Identity
• Art Direction
• Brand Development
• Graphic Design
• Strategic Communications
• Creative Direction
• Advertising
• Visual Communication
• Branding & Identity
• Photography
• Image Manipulation
• Posters
• Typography
• Layout
• Illustration
• Brochures
• Direct Mail
• Packaging
• Graphics
• Adobe Creative Suite
• Pre-Press
• Invitations
• Interaction Design
• Collateral
• Logo Design
• Vector Illustration
• Communication Design
• Indesign
• Business Cards
• Banners
• Image Editing
• Adobe Photoshop
• Lightroom
• Adobe Illustrator
• Strategic Planning
• Management
• Marketing