Journey of Design
3 YRS | 12 DESTINATIONS | 6,000 DESIGNS
It’s official, I have been on the Dapper Ink and Landmark team for three whole years!
What a journey it has been. From Appalachia, to the Rockies, to the heart of Yosemite, we have traveled together from coast to coast. We’ve returned to many of these locations throughout the years for photoshoots, events, learning opportunities, and national park cleanups. I never dreamt I would love my coworkers so much. The last few years have involved so many laughs, inspired so many products, and took us all over the country.
📍Charlotte, NC 📍Chicago, IL
📍Maggie Valley, NC 📍Denver, CO
📍Estes Park, CO 📍Asheville, NC
📍Los Angeles, CA 📍Joshua Tree, CA
📍Yosemite, CA 📍Charleston, SC
📍Damascus, VA 📍Fayetteville, WV
By chance, I was invited to join a senior class trip to GVL during my junior year of college. This is when I fell in love with the South East and discovered Dapper and Landmark. I screen printed for years in college and had dreamt of getting a chance to work with Dapper Ink’s production team. After graduation, my husband Nick and I spent our pandemic honeymoon in GVL trying to figure out how to make the move down from IL in 2021. After dozens of applications, interviews, rejections, and frustrated prayers, I got an email I never expected to receive.
On our way to Nick’s interview during our second GVL trip that June, the owner of Dapper and Landmark, who I hadn’t spoken to in months since a college project, asked if I would be interested in a design position on his team starting the following week. I was too close to trying to follow my own plans to see that something bigger was at work and God opened a door for me into a position I hadn’t event dreamt to land. I thought maybe one day I could intern as a screen printer and work my way up as a designer, but here I am 3yrs later doing exactly what I know I’m meant to do.
So, what is it that I do?
The short and sweet answer — I’m a graphic designer. This is what I tell family members, college students, and strangers when they ask. If they want to know more about what that entails, my answer gets much less short.
I work for two distinct companies under the same leadership and building. The parent company Dapper Ink is known for custom designs, screen printing and embroidery. Any job that we get from a client, whether they want their logo on a hat, or a custom design on a t-shirt, I work with the art and create the mockups they receive. Once that artwork is approved, I set up the files so our production team can create the screens we print the products with. Having screen printed for years, I have an understanding of how certain ink colors transfer to colored tees, what mesh size screen we would need for detailed design, etc-etc. In the last 3yrs, I’ve created approximately 6,000 mockups.
The second company is known as The Landmark Project.
The work I do here is a little harder to summarize and is ever-changing. Every week I oversee our Pinterest account, run special ads, and post organic content. I also publish weekly blogs to our Landmark website. I work closely with our copy writer on coming up with fun new ideas for Camp Cook Guides, National Park Hikes, and special events we participate in. I love working in both of these very different areas because they’re all about visual storytelling. Included in that are our photoshoots that I often get to assist on. From photographing camp recipes to a full product collection, we get to tell our brand story in fun unique ways.
Then there is the quarterly work of product design. At the start of the year we focus on collaboration, lots of sketching, and mood boarding. When we have a good idea of the products we want to make, we mockup our favorites. We’ll go through rounds of revisions, critique, and tech packs. Once they’re submitted, second quarter is all about samples. We decide which Pantones need adjusting, what fabrics we want to use, what packaging will look like. Now in Q3, inventory has landed on dozens of pallets and we’re in photoshoot season.
So often I face new creative challenges in the work that I do, but I have a team I continue to learn from and grow with. Over the years I’ve helped design a handful of t-shirts, magnets, enamel pins, and an entirely new embroidered patch collection.
One of my favorite projects to be a part of was our promotional video campaign where we tell our brand story. I love the way I can share this with friends and family so they can get a glimpse into the work that we do and create, but I also know many years from now I’ll be able to watch this and reminisce on all the memories we’ve made.