I left JR&Co Eyewear to work for it’s aesthetic antithesis:
Lee&Birch Women’s Boutique of West Michigan.

Having been around for several years with 2 successful stores in Grand Rapids and Grand Haven, they were fast growing and full of lighthearted feminine energy. L&B’s demographic was women 27-57 years old, which for the owner, Nikki Gillette, meant having marketing materials that were equally fun & sophisticated; Something both an adult mom and daughter could enjoy. They prided themselves on their customer service, style knowledge & local involvement. I spent the first 6 months training on the floor while doing marketing to fully comprehend the mission. Nikki preferred the word style to the word trend when choosing products and the success of a design strategy often depended on my discernment of the two.

During my 6 year tenure L&B opened up 3 more brick and mortar boutiques in West Michigan. I handled their visuals & marketing materials which included:

  • Conceptualizing, planning & executing monthly
    lifestyle shoots w local talent

  • Shooting and editing e-comm photography

  • Designing materials & promoting
    trunk shows and runway events online

  • Creating blog content & social media campaigns

  • Influencer & Model acquisition and management

  • Designing & scheduling e-blast marketing campaigns

  • Creating in-store window displays & installations

  • Designing & ordering branded print materials for all the stores.

What it looked like when I started in 2014:

What it looked like when I left in 2020:

design inspo:

The owner Nikki had a strong sense of what she liked and knew what she wanted to see from her brand.

At the time, JCrew was certainly having a moment with its preppy and clever email marketing. I would save examples of other marketing that either made a lot of text look good or had a clean layout to remind myself how to design with a cohesive result in mind.

This ‘show and tell’ method also helped me visualize Nikki’s aesthetic as laypeople in the design world, benefiting how much time was to be spent on revisions.

One of the first things the Nikki wanted was a fresh logo
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With a fondness for typography I reverse engineered some of other successful marketing campaigns from JCrew and Madewell. Having found I’d be using a lot of Italicized Didot & Helvetica in the body of emails and promos, I looked for something that would play well with both delicate serifs and bold block fonts.

Product Photography

e-commerce shoots were done with an in-house team of stylists and merchandisers, 2-4 hours spent capturing between 50 & 150 garments /session.

At first we coordinated at a local rental studio; schlepping all the product & small team comprised of the Owner, the GM, intern, 2-3 models & occassionally a H&MUA.

2 years in I was happy to run the in-house studio above the Rockford shop which also doubled as an event space. This saved us a lot of time and allowed me to dial in our process so we could have all edited selects online typically within 24h.

Lifestyle Overview


My photography skills were improving, which made it easier for models (ie. friends and shoppers with the right look) to trust I would not make them look bad during shoots. I was proud of the reputation we were building.

Local modeling agencies like Unique & Endless Management were willing to work w us at a small business rate because it was great experience for their newer talent. We would pull looks and accessories ahead of time & I would scout locations based on the vibe. I had mood boards, pose guides & a shotlist (examples lost to time) on hand to communicate pose, tone, branding needs & movement.



Generally these shoots would take place not far from the stores in Rockford, Grand Rapids & Grand Haven so we could quick-change at the store, but I was also a one-person mobile studio, driving models and product around to different locations, helping them change and adjust garments, so it was important to make sure everyone felt comfortable at all times.



I loved finding unique & fun places to shoot, having good connections with local businesses and craftspeople willing to share thier space with us for tags. I even connected with models while traveling to get various content. Most notably I’ve shot in San Francisco, Chicago & Paris for L&B.

Campaign highlights

While working for L&B my photography side hustle was steadily growing. After 6 years with the boutique, the work I was booking through my own channels outpaced what they could financially offer me, so I knew it was time to try hand at freelancing fulltime. I left with confidence in my networking ability, comprehension of stylistic nuance and a firm grasp of the power of marketing.