Derek Higaki Email & Phone Number

United States

Columbus, Ohio

As Civitas’ creative & strategy lead, I'm relentless in my mission to help our clients be bold, disruptive and effective with their brand marketing experiences.It's my obligation to our team and clients to own the agency’s creative and strategic vision and communicate it clearly to internal and external stakeholders. I define the creative strategy, oversee concept development and pitch creative for all agency output.I'm tasked with building and nurturing our talented creative team and our network of vendor partners to grow the agency's business while ensuring our team's capabilities remain competitive and relevant.Clients: Major League Soccer, U.S. Women's National Team, UpWest, Root Insurance, Tipico, Justice, World Pickleball Tour, Ovare Ventures

Columbus, Ohio

As one of the leaders on the Creative team across our group's portfolio of clients, it was my responsibility to guide team members through their projects and to mentor them when they encountered difficulties or conflicts.I developed Creative for new business opportunities that helped to grow scopes for our existing clients as well as assisted in the courtship of new ones. Collaborating with account and strategy team members, I assisted in the development of yearly planning roadmaps that relied upon the estimation of the team's effort (in hours) to set budget allotments and protect the project's margins against the expenditure of those hours.I worked with agency leadership to ensure the team's allocation and identify bandwidth issues as they developed. An expert knowledge of the team members’ capabilities was required to match associates to project work and create teams that capitalized on people's strengths, and in some cases matched them with complimentary team members to compensate for weaknesses. When we had the opportunity to hire team members, it was my responsibility to review and filter the candidates, lead interview sessions and ultimately hire the members of the team with the help of our Human Resources Department.Clients: Nestlé USA, Purina Petcare, Tidy Cats, Cat Chow, Digiorno Pizza, California Pizza Kitchen, Shaw Floors, Kichler Lighting, United Dairy Farmers, J.M. Smucker Company, Exal, IBM

Columbus, Ohio, United States

As Art Director, I led design teams in project work and managed junior associates according to the guidelines provided by our human resources team. I was the client-facing representative during all design-centered conversations and a creative steward throughout lengthy and on-going projects. I was tasked with the oversight of design tasks and was responsible for the team delivering against project briefs in collaboration with writing partners.I was responsible for delivering internal and external creative presentations along with managing and setting client expectations alongside account service team members. I worked with our strategists and business analysts to ensure our creative output was strategically on target and satisfied our scopes of work. It was my responsibility to critique work before presentations and to gather, distill and interpret feedback from stakeholders before providing clear action items to the design teams.

Columbus, Ohio, United States

Working in the digital marketing industry, I experienced the social advertising revolution that diversified and multiplied the capabilities that brands demanded of their digital agencies. Our company experienced the growth in demand for social content in the form of video and static image creation for our brand's owned-properties. My personal roles and capabilities evolved along with what our industry required, and as a product of that evolution, I worked on a diverse set of marketing efforts. I was charged as the lead creative, in many instances, to work on delivering robust website concepts and seeing through their development. Working alongside developers to see through the coding and implementation of original designs from start to finish. I operated in agile scrum teams to accomplish complex, large-scale website deliveries and ensure their quality from user experience and brand perspectives.I also collaborated with writers and creative directors to develop content calendars and manage social media accounts for brands in multiple business sectors including consumer packaged goods, manufacturing and business solutions oriented organizations.

Columbus, Ohio, United States

As a User Experience Designer, I worked directly with Creative Directors to parter with internal information architecture specialists and digital brand strategists to interpret client needs and deliver best-in-class digital marketing solutions for national brands. Deliverables included wireframes, website page layouts, promotional visual design units. Additionally, original design and concepts were developed for emerging marketing platforms during the beginnings of social media marketing. Branded social media properties included Facebook (profiles, posts, custom tabs), Twitter (profiles and posts), Pinterest and Instagram.

Columbus, Ohio, United States

As a Junior Designer, I worked alongside User Experience Designers, Copywriters and Art Directors to assist in the production and maintenance of digital brand properties including website, digital paid media, email campaigns. I focused on immersing myself in a Creative environment and learning all I could during the start of my career. I was fortunate to be able to support agency creative teams by participating in brainstorming sessions to develop brand ideas for creative pitches intended to generate digital and traditional marketing campaigns.

Columbus, Ohio, United States

In my experience as a graphic design intern, I supported the design team with the completion of assigned production and graphic design tasks. I worked alongside user experience designers, copywriters and art directors to develop digital brand assets that included email campaigns, banner ad concepts and their development, website assets and other graphic brand elements.

Columbus, Ohio, United States

Responsible for the design and development of print and digital materials that support the College of the Arts and Sciences and its various departments. Responsibilities include project coordination, graphic design, copywriting and print production.

Columbus, Ohio, United States

Completed design tasks as part of the Ohio State Athletics Creative Team. Working with stakeholders for all collegiate sports including Football, Men's and Women's Basketball as well as all Olympic Sports.

Bachelors Of Science, Visual Communication Design

Education record