“When I began designing machines I also began to think that these objects, which sit next to each other and around people, can influence not only physical conditions but also emotions. They can touch the nerves, the blood, the muscles, the eyes and the moods of people.”

- Ettore Sottsass

“Life is like a movie, write your own ending. Keep believing, keep pretending. The lovers, the dreamers, and me.”

- Jim Henson (as sung by Kermit the Frog in The Muppet Movie)

ABOUT

Hello! I am Brian FitzSimmons and I’m a design innovator with three decades of experience designing and directing creative solutions across the design spectrum, particularly within the brand and product design disciplines. I have a broad range of expertise focused around 3D creative direction, bespoke product development and retail merchandising. My professional mission centers on how we interact with brands to better tell the right story to the right consumers from a design perspective. I am also an avid researcher at heart who is constantly looking for new inspiration and insights from both professional and personal experiences. Outside of my profession, I am also a cinephile, photographer, media buff, foodie, culture vulture, and savvy traveller and have been fortunate to see my varied interests contribute key insights to create compellingly designed solutions throughout my career. For me, it’s one of the many ways to find and tap into the novel ways of thinking to build solutions that matter, no matter the subject.

DESIGN PROCESS

Design is the way people experience the world around them and a process for finding meaningful connections to breakthrough biases that arise in the interconnected systems the liminal spaces of today.

As a creative innovator, I champion a human-centered, process-driven approach to design that focuses on a data-driven insights to create layered storytelling that drives purposeful solutions. This process creates agile and strategic innovations by quickly breaking down challenging concepts into digestible parts for compelling results for consumers, manufacturers and retailers.

No matter the scope or category, every initiative can be broken into three distinct phases each with a structured outcome. Concepting is about looking deeply at insights and research to find ways to define innovation - this is key to understanding what is important to each initiative. Development takes the initial conceptual idea and works through them to create prototypes for a new product or experience. Realization brings that idea to life by shaping it to match production at scale - this is also the perfect time to learn from the outcome of the initiative and how ideas can be developed further. This process is at the core of every successful program and often helps refocus the business on solutions that matter.

PARTNERSHIPS & CLIENTS

Below are a few of the brands and retailers that I’ve had the pleasure of working with over my career:

I’ve provided a few work examples on this site. Work examples are shared in two portfolio links, Brand and Product. Brand is focused on CPG-related solutions while Product is focused on lifestyle solutions for the home. These two paths give me a uniquely informed, human-centered perspective when providing end-to-end creative services.

I am always up for new collaborative challenges - please feel free reach out. I’d love to learn more about how we can build something great and grow your business together.

Thank you for taking a moment to visit and review a sampling of my work!