Shortly after my time at Tree of Life, I decided to go back to what I love and into the sports merchandising industry, where I took the role of a Graphic Designer at Fanatics International. In this role, I am responsible for replicating template-based designs with high attention to detail, to ensure that all brand guidelines are met and are accurate with all the brands and partners that Fanatics Commerce supply. The vertically-integrated licensed merchandise business has changed the way fans purchase their favourite team apparel, jerseys, headwear and hardgoods through a tech-infused approach to making and quickly distributing fan gear in today’s 24/7 mobile-first economy. Partners include all major professional sports leagues (NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, NASCAR, MLS, PGA) and hundreds of collegiate and professional teams, in addition to several of the biggest global soccer clubs.
My main responsibility is creating computer generated and/or full colour graphics output that can be processed or layer separated through internal technology for apparel, jersey, and headwear products. Turning concepts into print – buy ready deliverables while understanding the full production process using advanced data knowledge, graphic and font replication, is another responsibility that I maintain from my time working at Danzoltd through other aesthetic sports licensed groups. My Illustrator and Photoshop skills have heavily advanced, to ensure graphic design integrity and uphold product quality. This then helps build out technical graphics to support innovative machines and changes to processes, that detail specific template attributes necessary for replication.
My role also works with the cross functional internal partners such as: Merchandising, Graphic Design, Product Development, Tampa Production Art, Imaging Team and Operations where I importantly manage the graphics and adopt the international market from the US. This includes requesting art from the US team, adapting graphics, finalising license submit sheets and setting up artwork. Furthermore, I also support the creative team for the build out of licensing sheets and work in collaboration with the licensing team to submit for partner approvals.
Other skills have also been developed through my time at Fanatics when working on variety of assignments on an as-needed basis, such as assisting designers on art setup of vendor/supplier art files working to AI, PDF, PSD & PNG formats. Maintaining records and archives of all previous work files and vendors and the ability to accurately call-out any conflicting data on art files & systems such as items ID (graphic codes), decoration types & colours is a key part of my role.
In this fast-paced, exciting work environment, I thrive working in a passionate team, producing quality graphic apparel for fans, reaffirming long-standing relationships with partners and maintaining a database of more than 80 million global consumers and a trusted, recognizable brand name. One of my favourite parts of working for Fanatics is the company becoming a next-gen digital sports platform, featuring an array of offerings for fans across the sports ecosystem and the continuous growth of the company with frequent new partners and collaborations.