ACADEMY of ART UNIVERSITY • Featured Alumna Julie Grantz

Immediately upon acceptance of her BFA in Graphic Design Department, Julie was awarded a design fellowship at Chronicle Books in the Gift Department. Her fellowship lasted for six months while under the supervision of Henry Quiroga, the Chronicle Books Gift Department Art Director. While in this position she completed a number of successful projects, including the Pixar Bookmarks and John Singer-Sargent collection of gift items. She has continued working with Chronicle Books as on various projects as a freelance designer.

In May of 2005 Julie completed letterpress certification at the San Francisco Center for the Book. She bought a small tabletop press, thus starting Flying Pig Press, a custom letterpress and fine printing shop, focusing primarily on invitation and correspondence design.

In early October of 2005, Julie was offered the full time creative director position at then called World of Charms, one of the brands in the Simayof family. Simayof is a successfully Diamond Jeweler based in San Francisco. World of Charms is the only nationwide all charms boutique, selling charms and accessories from $10 to $10,000.

It had been noted to the CEO, Sarit Simayof, that the World of Charms name sounded reminiscent of the Sunglass Hut, or Hot Dog on a Stick. The goal of the company goal was to bring in a talented young individual as their new creative director to rebrand the company with a new name, style, and concept that reflects their high-end products.

The offcial rebranding effort began just after Valentine’s Day in 2006. Julie worked on countless explorations to define the new brand concept, vision and criteria with Sarit’s specific goals in mind. In addition to a new logo, a unique stationary system was developed which utilizes a unique combination of elements. This includes a variety of hand selected charms, printed in greyscale, helping to capture the essence of the company. Each individual in the company has six different business cards, with each card displaying one of six charms. The charms for each individual are based on their location and personality.

Completely new and unique packaging was developed for the new brand, in order to utilize the meaning of the Sarit Simayof tag line; Reveal Your Charm. The gift boxes slide open to contain jewelry boxes, creating a beautiful interaction with the product. New bag shapes were developed to contain these one-of-a-kind boxes.

In addition to the collateral, packaging, stationary, Julie’s team also began to update the marketing materials with a new look and feel, moving as far away from the old World of Charms look as possible. Working with talented photographers Eva Kolenko and Cody Rasmussen, Julie created new advertising using models and moods, and moving away from straight on product shots. in order to complete the rebranding process, Julie also developed outstanding relationships with her vendors. She has continued to develop and maintain the new brand and while constantly understanding new ways of defining and translating Sarit Simayof’s unique vision for her company, and revealing her own charm.

Julie once said that typography stole her heart before any man did. This is clearly evident in her work. She prides herself in her creativity and technical abilities. She spends time on the tiniest of details, while also finding a lots of inspiration and motivation in being a big-picture thinker. The thing that satisfies Julie the most, is finding new ways of helping others, and working with others. She hopes to one day start her own creative studio where she can focus on helping clients with big ideas, solid solitons, astounding communication, and teamwork.

As the rebranding process with Sarit Simayof nears completion, Julie is currently looking for new ways to challenge herself, move forward, and find fulfilment with work through her talent and creativity.