About the Designer
Prior to freelancing, Rebecca Zook worked most recently as a Senior Graphic Designer for powersports giant Tucker Rocky Distributing in their in-house advertising agency from 1999-2016. Here she was responsible for consumer catalogs, print and online advertising, brochures, point-of-purchase displays, packaging, posters, rider autograph cards, t-shirt design, vehicle graphics and anything else the house brands could dream up to produce. At Tucker Rocky, Rebecca was not purely a graphic designer. She often functioned as photographer (along with art directing photoshoots) and copywriter on many projects and even started their first foray into a presence on the web including teaching herself to understand and edit code.
GRAPHIC DESIGN
A one page flyer to a 400 page consumer catalog will get the same attention to detail. No project is too small and no project unimportant.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Rebecca is comfortable searching out locations for photoshoots and experienced at finding professional and “every-day” people when models are needed. She art directed as well as acted as photographer on photoshoots with models or with product on a regular basis. Photo editing and extensive Photoshop work are among her abilities.
COPYWRITING
Rebecca has ample experience writing ad copy, product copy and even published articles and blog posts. In her position at Tucker Rocky, Rebecca was required to work with product manufacturers and brand specialists to take technical copy and translate it into terms that would reach and be understood by a consumer. This often required ample research to understand a product before even beginning work on the final piece. She is adept at understanding the technical and translating the salient points whether by text or visually to the end user.
ILLUSTRATION & FINE ART
Rebecca is an accomplished fine artist selling her paintings in several galleries and regularly showing her work in solo shows. She has also illustrated a children’s book for the Immune Deficiency Foundation. She is adept at computer based illustration as well.
Additional Past Employment includes Graphic Designer for Alphagraphics in Carrolton, TX and Cover Artist at Taylor Publishing company in Dallas, Texas.
Rebecca has a BFA in Advertising and minor in Studio Art/ Photography from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX. She attended on a full academic scholarship. Also two years of specialized commercial art instruction while at Plano Senior High School; one of only two high schools in the state at the time offering this type of special program.
In her personal life, Rebecca uses her experience to help promote the local art association, Lake Granbury Art Association as their volunteer webmistress and social media guru and show poster design. She loves gardening, having a special interest in Xeric plants and succulents. Rebecca loves all animals and has a house full of adopted cats, dogs and parrots. Plus, she advocates for rare diseases, particularly for Primary Immune Deficiencies. Rebecca spends the rest of her time loving, laughing and appreciating "the little things" in life with her husband, Ed.
PROJECT: River Road Brand Motorcycle Apparel and Luggage Catalog
115 Page
Consumer catalog featuring motorcycle apparel and luggage. Primary target audience American V-twin.
RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Art direction of product shots
- Art direction of lifestyle photography, also served as photographer on half the lifestyle shots
- Copywriting for product introductory pages
- Design and layout of catalog
- Location scouting
- Sourcing of models
PROJECT: River Road Brand Motorcycle Apparel and Luggage National Print Ad Campaign
Primary target audience American V-twin. Designed to match look and feel of catalog for that year.
RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Art direction of photography, also served as photographer for some shots
- Copywriter
- Design and layout
- Location scouting
- Sourcing of models
PROJECT: BikeMaster Brand Motorcycle (some ATV) Tools and Parts Catalog
356 Page
Consumer catalog featuring powersports tools and parts. The challenge was to make potentially visually boring product into a catalog that consumers would want to look through. Direction taken was to incorporate lifestyle shots of BikeMaster employees working on bikes using the tools and parts in a home garage environment. Also using a "Build Your Dream" theme and placing photos of finished project bikes throughout the catalog along with the background stories for each bike. The project bike idea was turned into an ad campaign for the brand.
RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Art direction of all lifestyle photography (worked with freelance photographer), also served as photographer on many of the product lifestyle shots
- Copywriting and editing for intro and project bike copy
- Design and layout of catalog
COVER:
Originated special process idea for cover. Image is created by printing detailed line art in clear gloss over a solid matte black background. Type reversed out. Cover appears to change before your eyes. Design carries over to back.
PROJECT: BikeMaster Brand "Build Your Dream" National Print Ad Campaign
BikeMaster sells motorcycle parts, tools and more for the shade tree mechanical to professional shop owner. This ad campaign is designed to appeal to the "do-it yourselfer" but uses bikes interesting enough to catch the attention of the professionals as well. All the bikes used were brought back to life from a state of disrepair using BikeMaster products. I worked with the owners to add the personal stories of the bikes. Since magazine placements included many with a specific target audiences I used classic bikes, street bikes and offroad in order to cover all segments.
RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Art direction of photography (worked with staff photographer and freelance photographer)
- Copywriter/Editor -worked with motorcycle owners for copy content
- Design and layout
PROJECT: FirstGear Brand Heated Apparel for Powersports Direct Mailer
Individual page size: 7.5" x 6"
36 Page
FirstGear is a highly regarded Motorcycle Apparel and Luggage brand. They incorporated Heated Gear by Warm and Safe™ into their line many years ago and it has done well. The product, though, is not intuitive to the average consumer and sales resulted in a large volume of calls to FirstGear to explain how to set up the product in specific configurations. The manufacturer's instructions were too general to be of specific help. One of the greatest features of this product is the ability to set up virtually any configuration to get heat specifically where you want it and no one had ever created more than very basic diagrams for consumer use.
The object of this direct mailer was to explain the features of each apparel piece, explain how the system works in broad terms and finally to provide easily understandable diagrams of every configuration. This job was as much about function as aesthetics. For me, this involved figuring out how the system worked and hooking the various products directly up to a motorcycle battery and the heat controller to see what problems or questions I would have...and that the consumer would likely have as well. Once diagrams were created, I tested them on multiple people with no knowledge of the product by giving them the product and the diagram and no further input. I further tweaked the instructions based on the their input until completely effective.
RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Creation of diagrams including necessary photography
- Design and layout
- Copywriting
PROJECT: BikeMaster and QuadBoss Brand Motorcycle and ATV Direct Mail Holiday Gift Guide
48 Page
Two house brands decided to pool monies to create a Holiday Gift Guide featuring both their products. Challenge was to create a piece that said holiday season without using too much in traditional colors or iconography. Each brand wanted to be equally represented in page count and price points as much as possible and provided a list of absolutes to include plus an "if there is room list".
RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Worked in conjunction with Creative Director to refine design and layout
- Primarily chose existing photography due to tight deadline
PROJECT: FirstGear® New Product Accordion Fold
Small folding card to send to retail dealers to hand out to consumers introducing them to the new 37.5™ technology introduced into the existing Base Gear that FirstGear offers and introduce redesigned jackets
RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Use existing product photography
- Copywriting/Editing
- Design and layout
PROJECT: BikeMaster Brand Motorcycle Chain Packaging Redesign
PACKAGING BEFORE REDESIGN
Packaging of motorcycle chain across all manufacturers has been very basic. The thought being that this is a necessary part that everyone will purchase so it needs no special treatment. Also, the ranges of sizes and lengths available for different bikes make it difficult to be anything but very general in ones labeling. We decided to challenge this notion by producing an attractive box that not only showed the product, but clearly the type of chain as well. Usually you had to look for a small identifier on the side of the box to figure out what was in it. To keep costs down, we chose to show the chrome chain on every box and added a sticker to indicate what specific color was included. A sticker is also used to show the chain type (the number). This greatly reduced the actual number of different boxes that needed to be produced and naturally the costs along with it. The new box design resulted in a large volume increase in sales. When representatives from the Japanese manufacture were visiting our offices, I had the most incredible compliment I have ever been paid. They specifically asked to meet me to tell me how much they liked the box design.
RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Design and Layout
- Art Direction of chain photos
- Copywriting/editing
PROJECT: FirstGear "Zen" National Print Ad Campaign
Lovingly referred to as the Zen ad campaign, the goal was to address the need to devise a series of ads that could fit all motorcycle magazines with the ongoing issue of the magazines each appealing to a specific market requiring photography of many different brands and styles of bikes, since this technical apparel line crosses markets appealing to wide range of riders. Given that the brand is well known, we decided to focus on a mood rather than showing a rider or even showing apparel. These ads, being so different from what the competition was doing, did result in a positive response from the market.
RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Choosing stock photography to fit with quotations suggested by FirstGear Brand Manager
- Design and layout
PROJECT: Logo ideas for a potential new line of bags and luggage
A variety of ideas were explored.
RESPONSIBILITIES:
Design
PROJECT: BikeMaster® 2015 Catalog Product Photography
These images were used for all section divider pages for the BikeMaster 2015 Catalog that I also designed. Text was placed in the upper left corner.
RESPONSIBILITIES:
Art Direction | Photographer | Photo Editing
PROJECT: FirstGear Square Catalog
140 Pages
8.25" square
Consumer catalog featuring motorcycle apparel and luggage. Action lifestyle shots of all types of bikes were asked to be used. This required finding actual riders willing to do photoshoots and massive location scouting. I also made a push to feature women's riders as well since they are often forgotten and FirstGear does carry a significant amount of women's apparel.
RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Art direction of all lifestyle photography (worked with staff photographer), also served as photographer for easily half the shots.
- Finding riders, bikes and locations for 5 separate photoshoots
- Copywriting and editing
- Design and layout of catalog
COVER:
The cover shot, that was well received, was actually an accident. The rider slid on a wet surface and landed in muddy water. Since he was on an adventure, cross country bike we kept shooting to capture more realistically what a long distance rider would look like after miles and miles on the roads and trails.
PROJECT: CoverMax Packaging Redesign
CoverMax is an extensive line of motorcycle, scooter and trike covers. Packaging was redesigned to give the product new fresh look. Box design for each product is identical except for upper right area that overlays front and top of box.
RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Design and Layout
- Road Photography
- Art direction of product photography
PROJECT: CoverMax Accordian Fold Handout
CoverMax is an extensive line of motorcycle, scooter and trike covers. They have never had a formal catalog and wanted to produce a small handout to give to retailers to have out on the counter for consumers to pick up. This was produced within a small budget of funds left over at the end of the year.
RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Design and Layout
- Copy editing and photo editing