Danielle Torres

(Hello)

I’m a creative director, design leader, and educator building a creative house around the things I’m most interested in: how we make, how we work, and the lives that surround both.

My independent practice is the first expression of the house. I work with people, teams, spaces, and cultural projects.

estudio

11—026 Brooklyn, NY

building
a creative house
& independent practice
for more alive work

Offering

1— Consulting
2— Creative Direction
3— Fractional Partnership

My practice starts from a belief: the quality of the work and the health of the system behind it shape one another. Stronger work is possible when the system makes room for the people within it.

I look at what’s happening on the surface and what may be happening beneath it, then work across the two to find patterns, friction, and possibility, making complexity more understandable without reducing it.

1— Consulting

For moments when something needs to be seen more clearly before deciding what comes next. I come in to observe the wider picture⁠—the work, the people shaping it, and what connects them.

Creative & brand audits
Ways of working
Recognition
Strategy next steps

2— Creative Direction

For work that needs more than a recommendation. I stay close to the process to help shape what gets made, how the pieces relate, and what deserves deeper attention, creating enough structure for coherence without flattening what makes the work specific and alive.

Brand evolution
Visual systems
Art direction
Aliveness

3— Fractional Partnership

Ongoing senior creative leadership for teams that need experienced direction over time without immediately adding a permanent full-time role. I work alongside leadership and creative teams to hold direction as the work, people, and organization evolve.

Creative leadership
Brand stewardship
Team direction
Capacity

About

I’ve spent the last 15 years making things inside large organizations, most recently as Director of Product Design at Lonely Planet and earlier in leadership roles at Tripadvisor and Huge.

I’ve worked with brands including Google, Spotify, Kate Spade, Walmart, eBay, Pantone, and Publix.

In that time I led creative teams, shaped digital products and brands, navigated burnout, and learned what happens when the work and the timeline start to matter more than the health of a team. I became as interested in taste, and in what it takes for people to do good work, as in the work itself. These are the questions I’m carrying:

What changes when we plan around what people can hold rather than how much time they have?
What deserves to remain strange, unresolved, or difficult?
What gets lost when urgency becomes the atmosphere everything is expected to live in?
What should remain consistent, and what needs permission to move?

Beyond the studio, I teach at Parsons, mentor emerging designers, and co-lead AIGA NY’s Education group.

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Contact

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