Hello!

Sam Janzen / / Creative Designer / / PDF Portfolio

Website: samjanzen.co.ukEmail: hello@samjanzen.co.uk

Phone: +44 7772 441329

About

Hi, I’m Sam Janzen, a creative designer based in London.

I currently work as Creative Director as part of a close team of designers at LUMA-iD delivering product design as a consultancy and as Head of Branding for Freefly VR, a trailblazing virtual reality startup producing one of the first smartphone headsets of recent years. Trained as a product designer and experienced as a graphic designer, I bridge the gap between marketing and production. During my four years of experience designing and marketing, I have taken a variety of new products from concept to market, collaborating with high profile clients and leading small businesses in creating branded visual content that drives company revenue.

I love the thrill of mastering new software or repurposing old software, which I can feed back into my work, creating a unique style. While I have a fascination with many different mediums, my skills largely centre around product visualisation and my passion comes with applying these skills to the appropriate role. I believe that all design tasks can be simplified to the same problem-solving techniques, like finding the right piece of the puzzle. The product designer in me strives to the ‘less is more’ mentality, but the branding designer in me ensures that my work has personality and soul.

Sam JanzenPhone: +44 7772 441329

Website: samjanzen.co.ukEmail: hello@samjanzen.co.uk

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sam-janzenLocation: London

Key SkillsGraphic DesignProduct Design

MarketingRendering

Prototyping Manufacture

3D PrintingPhotography

Presenting

Key SoftwareAdobe Creative SuiteAutodesk Fusion 360

KeyshotSolidWorksWordpress

Recent ClientsBBC NHS

Rough Trade Björk Digital

Rewind Co Warhammer 40k

LDF University of Oxford

MOMA Mind Candy

ExperienceCreative DirectorLUMA-iDJune 17 - Present

• LUMA is a team of industrial design consultants, where my work focuses on visual impact and presentation. I identify situations where a project is limited, and think laterally to offer new options to the team. I can tell whether current solutions are correct, and promptly brainstorm with colleagues to resolve when they’re not.

• Whilst maintaining my role as a 3D-modelling product designer, I oversee all graphic design and image creation. This involves producing product branding, marketing renders and occasionally crowdfunding videos, while also providing templates and teaching valuable skills to the rest of the team.

• Representing LUMA by giving talks and attending trade shows is an important part of our marketing. Alongside this B2B marketing, I create online content to bring potential new customers to our site. Once the clients contact us, I am the first port of call for meetings and project instigation.

• The close-knit nature of the LUMA office makes us a perfect training ground for interns and apprentices, so over my three years I have seen the prodigious development of 14 young designers. I managed and trained most of them and am pleased to continue advising them whenever they need me.

Head of BrandingFreefly VRSept 15 - Dec 17

• The past three years has been a rollercoaster for the VR market, and during my time with Freefly I have seen a new technology develop into a worldwide phenomenon. We launched before most other smartphone VR headsets and as such were a significant part of developing commercial virtual

reality technology as we now know it.

• All branding and content creation for Freefly VR was my responsibility. After a year of balancing the ideas of my three directors, I quickly realised the need for brand guidelines. Finding that I didn’t have the time in my daytime hours, I created the Freefly VR brand guidelines in my own time to make sure I was proud of them and could rely on them.

• Running trade shows and being the public face of Freefly was an important part of marketing. B2C shows working to KPIs were common, and whilst difficult at times, they provided a great connection to my market. I would organise, negotiate, design and run the shows, using connections wherever necessary to make it all a success.

• Part of my time at Freefly was spent in the Dominican Republic in order to work alongside my CEO. I relocated for three months to work on sales documents and to instil the brand values within the remotely-based sales team. Living and working in a less developed country was an experience I cherish and one that I would love to repeat.

• Before the launch of our second edition of the Freefly, I represented the company in Shenzhen, China, for final pre-production checks. This involved last-minute problem spotting and solving, as well as resolving bottlenecks in the production, before pressing the button on 100,000s of units.

Product DesignerLUMA-iDJan 15 - Jun 17

• The primary role of everyone at LUMA is as a product design consultant. I handled my own projects utilising CAD, prototyping, production and marketing skills to take a client’s dream to the next stage. Most projects would be directed and executed by myself, while larger projects would be a team collaboration amongst the team of up to six.

AchievementsLondon Design Festival2017 Design Talk

• LDF talk giving an overview of LUMA and our design process.

The Apprentice (BBC)2017 Graphic Design Expert

• During the 13th season of the classic TV show, I advised as a graphic designer for a task (e.g. my mum's proudest moment).

• I also trained my then-intern to represent us on the show.

Complete Guide to Virtual Reality 2017 Contributor

• I was commissioned to write three chapters of a VR reference book, using the expertise i had acquired while at Freefly.

Björk Digital2015

• Organised the launch event for the first VR music video, Björk’s Stonemilker, at both Rough Trade London and the MOMA New York, .and then Carriageworks Australia.

EducationUniversity for the Creative Arts BA (Hons) 1:1Product Design & Interaction2011 - 2014

• Shortlisted for NESTA, ‘Hands Off My Bike’ competition and Electrolux, ‘De-sign Lab’ global design competition.

• Exhibitor at Łódź Design Festival, ‘Make me!’ and New Designers graduate show.

• Asked back to UCA as a successful graduate example and to give a guest KeyShot lecture.

• Student course representative during my time there.

CV

Freefly VR // Head of Branding

The design, production and marketing of the Freefly VR products.

Freefly VR

Freefly VR, v1

Adobe CC

Graphic Design, Product Design,

Manufacture

Freefly VR

Freefly VR Beyond, V2

Wordpress, Adobe CC

Marketing, Production,

Branding

Freefly VR

• My role as Head of Branding within Freefly VR gave me creative control of our image, be that online advertise-ments, weekend events, collaborations and even the style of the product.

• Over three years we released three versions each were met with stellar reviews and large numbers of sales worldwide, with our website peaking at 150k visitors per month. The first version, Freefly VR, launched alongside the first VR music video with musician Björk, with only the Google Cardboard headsets as our competition in smart-phone VR. As the market exploded, we

had time ahead of the competition to develop and improve our original design, culminating in our second edition, the Freefly VR: beyond. Most re-cently we innovated within immersive technology again, with a mixed reality headset Freefly VR: horizon.

Freefly VR Horizon: V3

Keyshot, Photoshop

Branding, Product Design,

Marketing

Freefly VR

Visuals• Over the course of the previous two

versions I felt like we needed a different graphic style to bring together our 'cool tech' brand. The hero image for the latest Freefly VR was a developed out of combining a few experimental ideas.

• After becoming fascinated with fractals and the nature behind incomprehen-sible shapes that fire produces, I dis-covered an obsolete piece of software called 'Apophysis7x'. It uses graphs and mathematical functions to calculate 'flames' like you can see opposite.

• Combining these flames with KeyShot renders in Photoshop gave an incredi-bly rich effect at a low-cost, although I found it was easy to overdo it. Scaling back the effect over the course of my experiments, I finished on a magic glow emanating from the headset.

Keyshot, Photoshop

Rendering, Marketing

Freefly VR

Branding• Maintaining a consistent brand

image is crucial. After instigating the Freefly VR brand, I laid out the brand guidelines to solidify the rules. While intended as a tool for others who cre-ated content, the guidelines helped to identify the coherent brand image that was already there.

InDesign

Branding,Marketing,

Graphic Design

LUMA-iD // Creative Director

Starting the life of products for a variety of clients.Rendering, modelling, marketing and pitching.

LUMA-iD

Brighter Bikes

SolidWorks, Keyshot

Product Design

• LUMA-iD has given me the chance to see many products start their life, and within the team my role is usually that of branding, visualisation and market.

• Most of the team at LUMA commute to the south London office on their bikes,

so we all know the need for a relia-ble and easy to use indicator system. Brighter Bikes is designed to be highly adaptable, containing:

• An indicator control point strapped to your handlebars, easily removed from

the bars and helmet with a rubber strap, so they can be charged and secured;

• Two slimline brake buttons slid onto your brake handles;

• A wireless indicator light attached to your helmet, bag, bicycle, or wherever else you would like.

LUMA-iD

Warhammer 40k PowerFist

• As a collaborative marketing project with Rewind Co for Warhammer, LUMA-iD designed and produced a pneumatic fist to smash through everyday bothersome tasks. Hilarious and awesome - search for ‘Power Fist Infomercial’, you won’t regret it.

• As part of the London Design Festival 2017 I gave a talk and demonstration along with other designers in the local community to showcase the PowerFist and pitch the work we do at LUMA-iD.

LUMA-iD

3D Printing, Rapid Prototyping,

Marketing, Presenting

Personal // Other Work

Side projects or for myself.

Personal

Rendering• In the same way that a camera is a

tool to produce my vision, computer rendering becomes a valuable tool for product designs. I use KeyShot output straight to Photoshop – always output to Photoshop. When taking photos it’s often the aim to reduce imperfections, but the secret to CG work is to design in imperfections.

• As a personal project, I rendered a set of three photorealistic images of insects - a dragonfly, a beetle and a hornet - in their natural surroundings in order to push keyshot to its limits. Keyshot has many limitations, but what it can’t do can be made up for in Photoshop, making it very powerful in the long run. Check out the other bugs on my website!

Keyshot, Photoshop

Rendering, Personal Work

Photography• Bridging the gap between design

and marketing is creating the correct image. I shoot lifestyle marketing shots, clean product images, and event doc-umentation. My skills in Lightroom and Photoshop allow for a dark exposure or unwanted scuff. My work - freelance and professional - has been used in printed magazines and online publi-cations, as well as billboards and event material.

• An offshoot of my photography work, I have directed and created successful product crowdfunding campaigns. I use Premiere Pro and After Effects, and experiment with fringe plugins when I get the chance. I also began a series of 360 music videos for a handful of clients when promoting a product for Freefly VR, using a plugin called Mettle 360 and manually editing metadata.

Personal

Lightroom, Premiere Pro

Photography,Videography

Thanks for your time!

Sam Janzen / / Creative Designer / / PDF Portfolio

Website: samjanzen.co.ukEmail: hello@samjanzen.co.uk

Phone: +44 7772 441329