I could see the web becoming more and more a part of our lives. As the recession hit, what had been trending in the creative industry became the norm. It was at that point that I went full trottle learning web design and shortly thereafter development.

To my credit, I put up my first e-commerce site before I went back to college to learn programming. With html, css, and a little php/MySQL tutorial under my belt, I made my way into a web career by putting up e-commerce sites for Royal Gourmet House, Inc. extensive warehouse business, royalice.com and eroyalcoffee.com. The initial sites were in osCommerce, a beast of a system compared to what has come out in the following years. As technology improved so did the sites architecture as I converted them to more progressive, better functioning, easier to use platforms.

Working with Royal Gourmet House, Inc. I was in charge of their e-commerce, online and print marketing. I used html, css, javascript, php, and MySQL along with Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign on the sites and collateral. Mailchimp, and Google Analytics, AdWords, Webmaster Tools (+others) were used to track, maximize, and optimize.

Through my work and direction we were approved to be the official Jelly Belly Slushy e-commerce site. Since we were selling only Jelly Belly Slushy products and POS, I kept the site very clean and to the point.

In addition to the e-commerce site, I was in charge of the sites online marketing. A bi-weekly email newsletter and Google AdWords were used to get the word out. Google Analytics used to track the progress of the campaign.

Royal Ice Slushy is Royal Gourmet’s top selling product. Besides search engine marketing, a bi-weekly email newsletter, Google AdWords, and national vending magazine ad were used to connect with existing and future customers. A Facebook presence and pump signs were added to further saturate the market. Google Analytics used to track the progress of the campaign.

During my time at Royal Gourmet, I took care of Wilson’s Flavors e-commerce, print and online marketing. Wilson’s Flavors and wilsonflavors.com (domain ) were a separate division of Royal Gourmet that eventually got sold.

Wilson’s label was in dire need of updating. The problem was that the previous owners had tried to change to label only to have the product stop selling. Bad news indeed. I sought out to marry the old with an updated version. A nod to the past while moving into the future. The label I created did just that. They experienced no lag or problem selling with the updated label design.

I designed service flyers, business cards, and other marketing collateral before the division closing.

One of the products that came out of Wilson’s was the PV Premium Syrup line. I liked how the labels and sale sheet came out. The product was intended to be used by individuals at their house and included recipes for smoothies and alcoholic drinks.

I did the montage of fruits and lady with blender in Adobe Photoshop, used Adobe Illustrator for the art, layout was done in Adobe InDesign. Labels were done in a similar manner, Photoshop for photos, Illustrator for art, InDesign for layout, lots of research for label copy and recipes.