darren vernall art director portfolio snapshot

I’m a passionate, experienced, award winning freelance art director.

I can help you out with creating ideas, artwork, illustration and much more.

I’ve got over 12 years agency experience.

I’ve worked for a wide variety of large global clients.

I’m based in Southampton.

I’m house trained and love working with teams of talented people.

Now to tell you what I’ve been up to…

Darren Vernall • [email protected] • 07879 686695 • @darrenvernall

DARRENVERNALLARTDIRECTOR

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Some of the brands I’ve worked with in agency life up to 2014 include…

strategy • concepts • artwork • illustration

DARRENVERNALLARTDIRECTORDarren Vernall • [email protected] • 07879 686695 • @darrenvernall


In the last few years I’ve helped agencies to win competitive pitches…

strategy • concepts • artwork



and I’ve also worked on strategy, art direction, campaign ideas, social content and production for many clients including…

strategy • concepts • artwork • illustration • content • production • video



Examples of work

Darren Vernall • [email protected] • 07879 686695 • @darrenvernall DARRENVERNALLARTDIRECTOR


Strategy, concept, artwork, award winner.

To support the launch of the new locations and also to continue to grow London, Zipcar were looking for a high impact way to engage with their business audience, cause disruption around the traditional business travel choices available and generate new customers.

I produced the strategy, concepts, artwork and sketches for this successful pitch, the final campaign for which went on to win Best SME Targeted campaign at the B2B Marketing Awards in 2015.




Just Eat required an regional integrated campaign concept to educate Londoners that Just Eat now deliver food from some of the most popular restaurants around and not simply your go-to for traditional takeaway fare.The concept was rolled out across 244 formats including billboards, print, digital billboards and digital display.The campaign was nominated for The Drum’s Creative Out Of Home Awards for best integrated campaign of 2016.

The Big Idea.


Give me the pitch.

These ideas were part of a successful pitch to Travelodge which I was agency Creative Lead for. The concepts needed to be targeted towards Travelodge’s business customers, so we explored the different aspects of business travel and lifestyle, from celebrating the UK, to challenging the target business’s perceptions of who they think Travelodge are, in light of their extensive nationwide refurbishments, to…puppets, of course. I attended the pitch and presented creative strategy and artwork to the client.



Social content: from concept to shoot to animation and edit.

How do you create engaging content to showcase products, whilst tying closely to the seasons and getting great engagement? By devising creative platforms first of all, then creating the content that fits. Using a mixture of visual techniques including stop motion animation I created a raft of social content that ticked all of the boxes in a complex brief.



Strategy, concept, artwork


This concept was for a B2B campaign for Carphone Warehouse as part of a successful pitch, where to highlight their commitment to the businesses they were targeting, we wanted to show how hard CPW would work for ‘you’ by literally sending out a member of their team to work for you. Illustrations and graphics brought the concept to life.


Creative meets strategy.

In order to determine and communicate the future of BBC3, the BBC commissioned a strategy piece that involved diving deep into the channel’s target audience. My involvement was in bringing this to life in creative ways; as imperative to impress the client themselves as it was as a tool to then communicate to other far reaching parts of the BBC. This was received as an outstanding piece of work.



Pitch strategy, concept & artwork.

Miele were looking for new ways to get across their brand experience, so I devised a raft of creative approaches that uncovered insights that hadn’t been considered by them before. The concept that they went with was innovative and groundbreaking for the Miele brand.



A drawn out process.

These ideas were part of a successful pitch to Travelodge where I worked as the agency Creative Lead. The concepts needed to be targeted towards Travelodge’s business customers, so we explored the different aspects of business travel and lifestyle, from celebrating the UK, to challenging the target business’s perceptions of who they think Travelodge are, in light of their extensive nationwide refurbishments, to…puppets, of course.


Illustration is a great tool to get across ideas and stories. Above is a storyboard for a video (currently being produced) that I scripted and drew. Illustrations work really well in pitch situations too, to bring ideas to life and can show a vibrant thought process and energy. It’s also very handy when the image in your head just can’t be found on Shutterstock or Photoshopped convincingly!


Additional Scamps, storyboards and illustration



From online campaign to prime-time TV ad spot.

This digital campaign concept for Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings was so liked by the client that US creative was shunned for this to be used for the national prime-time TV ad for the title too.

I was creative lead for the project responsible for concept, storyboards, shoot, edit and production.



PARK ROW CREATIVE LTDFreelance Art DirectorApril 2014 - present

Since beginning my life as a freelance Art Director I’ve worked with a number of agencies adding in strategy, concepts, artwork, illustration, animation, film and editing in all areas of the process from pitch to production.

My work in this time has been instrumental in winning in competitive pitches with one campaign going on to win an award for Best Targeted SME campaign at the B2B awards in 2015.

Key clientsSky, Travelodge, American Express, BBC, Fatface, National Trust, Call of Duty, Nintendo, NHS, Miele, Carphone Warehouse, Zipcar

HEADSTREAMCreative DirectorJan 2012 – April 2014

Headstream is an independent, specialist social and content agency working in offices in Southampton, London and Los Angeles.

As Creative Director my day-to-day work covered all areas of the creative process. From ideas and artwork, to conveying concepts to clients or production teams, my role was to create, nurture and maintain the integrity of an idea from the nucleus all the way through to fruition working closely with the team.

Key accountsMaxinutrition, Lush, Cunard, SAB Miller, P&O Cruises, IBM, 505 Games

FIVE BY FIVESenior Art DirectorSept 2007 – Dec 2011

Five by Five is an independent, digitally led ideas agency with over 100 full time employees working in offices in Southampton, London and Los Angeles. at that time they had a particular specialism in creative campaigns, rich media advertising and large web development projects for the game, FMCG and entertainment sectors.

As Senior Art Director my work varies from the conceptual (ideas generation, storyboarding, wireframes, scamps, mood-boards, pitch documents and proof of concepts; whatever is necessary to convey the concept.) to working closely with teams of individuals, leading the projects throughout all areas of the production process within the studio all the way through to delivery.

Other responsibilities included line management to the creative team; which consisted of implementing performance development reviews and being ultimately responsible for all creative output from the team.

I also lectured to Multimedia undergraduates at Solent University and sat on judging panels for student competitions.

Key accountsActivision, Adidas, Coopervision, Banana Republic, Garmin, WKD, SONY Playstation (SCEE), New Look, GAP, Momentum Pictures, UKTV (Dave, Bravo, Alibi)

31st December 1975 07879 686695 [email protected] linkedin.com/in/darrenvernall

Career to date

Darren Vernall Art Director CV


LAWTON EMARKETINGAnimator/Flash Developer May 2005 - Sept 2007

I joined this full service digital agency specialising in the entertainment, travel and FMCG sectors as a creative flash and video developer instilling cinematic sensibilities into the work we produced in order to bring the creative to life. I was involved in the development of their proprietary rich media banner platform ‘Motioncast’, pushing the boundaries of what was technically and creatively possible. Working closely with the creative director, towards the end of my tenure I was working more and more on the conceptual creative side of the business attending pitches and working closely with clients.

Key Accounts: THQ Games, Sunny D, Dole, Ocean Spray, Eidos, Bacardi Breezer, Sega, Club 18-30, Liverpool Victoria, EA Games, Midway.

FINANCITY LTDCreative/Web DeveloperNovember 2003 - May 2005

I joined this online enterprise as a creative and web developer designing, animating and building the rich content for this a community based financial advice web site. It required me to utilise a wide variety of skill sets to create the many tools, tutorials and pages that resided within the site.

Skills required: Illustration, Flash, Photoshop, HTML and CSS were all used regularly whilst working within an iterative development.

FREELANCE ANIMATOR AND FLASH DEVELOPERMarch 2001 – November 2003

I worked for a number of agencies on a variety of projects including animated storyboards, character animation for games, eLearning websites, CD-ROMs, banner advertisements and web site builds.

Clients included Wiggle, Logica and Zenith Entertainment.

HIGHER EDUCATIONHND in AnimationBournemouth and Poole College of Art and Design.

SCHOOL AND COLLEGE3 A Levels High grade passes10 GCSE High grade passes

EDUCATION

I am a guitarist & singer with a keen interest in blues music and like nothing more than to play in pubs and venues varying from small clubs with my blues band to large concert halls as George Harrison in tribute band The Silver Beatles. I am an avid fan of comic books and movies.

I live in Chandlers Ford, near Southampton with my fiancé Katie, her 11 year old daughter Alice and at weekends my six year old son William.

INTERESTS

CAREER TO DATE

Darren Vernall Art Director CV

31st December 1975 07879 686695 [email protected] linkedin.com/in/darrenvernall


Thank you!

