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 to identify patterns, friction, and possibility, and make complexity more understandable without reducing it.

1— Consulting

For moments when something needs to be seen before deciding what comes next. I help people and teams recognize their own direction, name the gaps, and make decisions with greater intention.

Creative & brand audits
Ways of working
Recognition
Strategy next steps

2— Creative Direction

For work that needs more than a recommendation. I explore and shape how an existing direction or new idea can extend into a larger creative world, identifying what deserves deeper attention and creating enough structure for coherence while bringing forward what makes the work specific and alive.

Brand evolution
Visual systems
Art direction
Aliveness

3— Fractional Partnership

Senior creative leadership for teams that need experienced judgment over time without immediately adding a permanent full-time role. I work alongside stakeholders to help hold the work, people, and organization through a specific project or period of transition or expansion.

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’ve become just as interested in what it takes for people to do good work as I am in taste and the work itself. These are some of 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.

MORE >

Contact

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