Mark Kozak

Title:

Designer, Art Director, Creative Director

Company:

Looking for Full time, Freelance, Contract work

Company Website:

http://www.mediabistro.com/markkozak

Media Type:

Publishing, eMedia, Newspaper, Service Provider

Media Realm:

Consumer Media, Business Media, Associations, Creative Agency

Home Region:

Pacific States

Past Companies & Brands

Entrepreneur Media Inc., Irvine, CA
SMB Connects, Irvine, CA
GrowBiz, Irvine, CA
Sunscape Eyewear, Inc. Irvine, CA
REO Insider, Dallas, Texas

I'm Looking For:

Friends, Networking, Jobs, Inspiration

Professional Background: (Resume)

• 10+ Years of Creative Director and management experience in a high volume, corporate environment.

• Develop and maintain brand strategies. Created brand identity for 14 national publications.

• Exceptional problem solver, offer new ideas for growth, budgeting and planning.

• Provide creative leadership, direction, vision, and motivation to other team members.

• Coordinate, and collaborate with outside vendors and in-house resources to build consensus; ensure project targets, deadlines, and budget requirements are met.

• Hire and direct photographers, illustrators and other creative’s according to project needs.

• Self-motivated, enthusiastic, inquisitive and adaptable; embrace change readily. Driven to succeed.

• Very organized, multitask, prioritize and delegate, handle multiple projects simultaneously.

• Extensive experience in prepress, print, digital, online and all phases of production, from inception to launch.

• Proficient: Mac OSX, Adobe CS2-4, Quark, Word, Power Point and many other applications.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:

Creative Director — 1989 - August 2008. Entrepreneur Media Inc., Irvine, CA, 92614
10+ years as Creative Director, formulate design concepts, Brand strategies/management and presentation approaches. Solid success directing and implementing broad range of revenue-generating design projects including 11 national magazines and promotional/marketing deliverables for print and Web. Managed operational, strategic, financial and staffing functions for the Art Department.

SELECTED ACHIEVEMENTS

BRAND ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
• Developed corporate logo and helped redefine brand ID for Entrepreneur Media Inc.
• Helped set up and maintain Entrepreneur brand internationally. In Mexico, Philippines, Russia, China, South Africa, Middle East and India.
• Established brand for 11 national magazines, including flagship publication Entrepreneur magazine. Formats and title logo design, set up template files for features, departments and created a brand style guide.
• Designed 200+ magazine covers including 180+ Entrepreneur magazine covers.

INCREASED SALES AND CIRCULATION
Innovative cover and editorial format designs were instrumental in increased newsstand sales +33% and circulation +9.2% for Entrepreneur magazine, from 2004-2007.

INCREASED PRODUCT RECOGNITION
Cover designs were key in establishing Entrepreneur magazine as the top selling “business” magazine on the newsstand from 2005-2007.

BUDGET / COST MANAGEMENT
Established cost effective ways to consistently stay under budget reduce costs and still maintain the highest standards in quality.

WORKFLOW STRATEGIES
Met every deadline and increased productivity. Devised workflow strategies to aid cross-functional departments and expedite production.

MANAGEMENT
Provided superior leadership, direction and guidance for a team of up to 10 diverse employees, mentored several staff members to obtain promotions.

BUSINESS WEEKS BESTSELLER LIST
Designed formats for 7 Books plus 12 Book covers for Entrepreneur Press, including Start Your Own Business, which is on Business Weeks bestseller list with over 200,000 copies sold.

FREELANCE:

Creative Director — February 2008 – July 2009. SMB Connects, Irvine, CA, 92614
Designed corporate logo and print collateral. Redesigned 3 National Magazines (formats and title logos).
Designed 3 web sites, web graphics and logos.

Instructor — 1997 - 1998. California State University, Fullerton (CSUF)
Create and develop course outlines, project guidelines, lectures and lecture materials and grade projects.
300 level class, give lectures, mentor students, run computer labs, assign and grade projects.

ADDITONAL CLIENT LIST: Champion Paving Inc., Extron Electronics, Food Sales West Inc., Foothill High School, Grow Biz Media.com, Housing Wire Inc., Moran Media Group Inc., Simone Gold MD, Shredwise Inc., Small Biz Daily.com, Sunscape Eyewear Inc., Trinity United Presbyterian Church and Tustin Western Little League.
Skills

• COMPUTER: Proficient in Mac OSX; Quark XPress 7.3; Photoshop CS2; Illustrator CS2; InDesign CS3; Acrobat Professional; Microsoft Word; Power Point. Intermediate knowledge of: Dreamweaver CS3; Flash CS3; HTML and Windows.

• MANAGEMENT: Directly supervise; Motivate and inspire; Schedule and Budget administration; Collaborate and brainstorm with in house resources as a team; Building and maintain relationships; Lead team by providing key concepts and critical evaluation of projects; Hire and direct photographers, illustrators, freelancers and vendors; Knowledge of business and technology trends; Effectively work through and resolve conflicts and design issues; Strategic and tactical leadership; Review in-house proofs and printers proofs; Press checks; Advertising/marketing strategies; Concept development; Execution of creative and design deliverables; Guide; Lead; Organize; Implement; Objectives; Recruit; Delegate; Contribute; Quality assurance; Trusted; Insightful; Memorable; Pioneering; Agile, Timeline.

• DESIGN: Logo design; Brand ID; Branding; Brand style guides; Publication; New magazine; Redesign magazine; Editorial; Layout; Typography; Supplements; Books; Directories; Catalogs; Posters; Newsletters; Advertisements; Brochures; Strong attention to detail; Web; Internet; Collateral; Print campaigns; Graphics; Marketing; Promotional; Prototype; Mock-ups; Concepts; Sketching; Vector Art; Raster Art; PPT presentations; 2 Color; 4 Color (CMYK); 5 Color; PMS Color; Foil Stamping; Embossing; Dye Cutting; POP—Point of Purchase; Clean but lively; Exquisite; Type fanatic.

• PRODUCTION: Expert knowledge of design process in print, digital and Web; Perform all aspects of production—concept, design, layout and prepress; Color correcting, photo manipulation, retouching, scanning, vector and raster art development; Prepress production process— optimizing images and creating PDF files with PDF/X-1A printing specifications; Web production process for digital/online distribution—optimizing graphic and image files as JPEG, PNG, GIF, or PDF.

Education
California State University, Fullerton (CSUF)
BACHELOR OF FINE ART DEGREE (BFA)

Personal Interests

Art, Design, Computers, Outdoors, Mountain biking, Snowboarding, Softball.

Education:

BFA Degree: Graphic Design

Other Web Profile or Personal Web Site

http://www.mediabistro.com/markkozak

My LinkedIn

Relationship Status:

Married