Los Angeles, CA • Available for Senior & Leadership Roles

Derick
Quesada

Senior Graphic Designer | Brand, Marketing & Digital Design

Multidisciplinary Graphic and Visual Designer with 11+ years of experience creating brand, marketing, digital, print, broadcast, and motion design for organizations across insurance, apparel, television, and media.

View Selected Work

11+ Years Experience

LA Los Angeles, CA

Executive Profile

Professional Summary

Great design is built on purpose.

Every project begins with understanding the audience, defining the objective, and creating visuals that communicate with clarity. My work combines creativity, technical precision, and strategic thinking to produce solutions that not only look great but also help brands grow.

I’m a multidisciplinary designer with more than ten years of experience helping brands communicate through thoughtful, engaging visual design.

My career has taken me across marketing, print production, digital campaigns, website content management, and product photography, giving me a broad understanding of how great design supports real business goals. Combined with a background in fine arts and training in game production, I bring a unique blend of artistic fundamentals and technical expertise in 3D modeling and motion graphics.

Whether I’m building marketing campaigns, photographing products, designing digital experiences, or creating immersive 3D visuals, I approach every project with the same goal: crafting work that is both visually compelling and strategically effective.

I believe the strongest design isn’t just beautiful—it solves problems, tells stories, and creates meaningful connections between brands and people.

Portfolio Showcase

Selected Projects

Action Cinema Network

NEON FIST

International Action Cinema, Curated. Complete Broadcast & Streaming Brand Identity System.

Contemporary Restaurant

mís

Food made for sharing. Brand Identity & Art Direction.

Legacy Projects

Design Across Print, Digital, Photography & Production.

Career Trajectory

Professional Experience

Graphic Designer II

Warner Pacific Insurance Services — California

Lead visual design and creative production across email campaigns, social media, digital advertising, presentations, sales materials, website content, internal communications, events, print, and branded marketing initiatives.
Translate marketing and business objectives into clear, engaging visual communications for audiences across digital and physical channels.
Partner directly with marketing, sales, executives, brokers, and internal stakeholders to develop creative solutions aligned with business goals and brand standards.
Design campaign assets and marketing collateral across multiple touchpoints while maintaining consistent visual identity and messaging.
Incorporate AI-assisted tools and emerging creative technologies into the design workflow to accelerate ideation, asset development, image generation, editing, and production while maintaining professional creative standards.

December 2022 — Present

Freelance Graphic Designer

Freelance

Delivered end-to-end graphic design services for clients with diverse branding, marketing, digital, and print requirements.
Developed visual concepts from initial brief through design, revision, production, and final delivery.
Managed client relationships, project scope, timelines, creative direction, and production independently.
Adapted creative concepts across multiple formats, audiences, platforms, and production specifications.

Nov 2021 — Dec 2022

Marketing Designer

Primal Wear — Denver, CO

Designed integrated marketing and promotional creative supporting sales, product launches, events, e-commerce, and brand communications.
Produced digital campaigns, email graphics, web graphics, sales collateral, event graphics, packaging, signage, vehicle graphics, and promotional materials.
Developed visual assets for both digital and physical applications while maintaining brand consistency across customer touchpoints.
Created and maintained brand guidelines and visual standards across marketing materials.

Feb 2020 — Nov 2021

Senior Channel Branding Designer

ION Media Networks — Clearwater, FL

Designed and produced broadcast graphics for ION Television, Qubo Kids, and ION Plus, including lower thirds, ratings graphics, end credits, crawls, and other on-air visual communications.
Created motion graphics and automated templates for scheduled deployment within a professional live television broadcast environment.
Served as technical supervisor for the Orad/Chyron graphics system and associated SQL database, supporting reliable broadcast graphics operations.
Developed automated graphic templates that streamlined the creation, scheduling, and deployment of on-air content.
Managed graphic production in a high-pressure broadcast environment where accuracy, consistency, timing, and technical reliability were critical.

June 2015 — Feb 2020

EDU

Game Production & Design

International Academy of Design and Technology — Tampa

Comprehensive training in 3D modeling, digital art, animation, game production, and interactive media, including Maya, Cinema 4D, Blender, 3ds Max, ZBrush, UDK, Photoshop, and Illustrator.

2012 — 2015

Associate of Arts — Art Studio / Fine Arts

Santa Fe College

Coursework in drawing, painting, printmaking, color theory, composition, and traditional art fundamentals.

2010 — 2012

Toolkit & Technologies

Core Expertise

Photoshop

Mastery

Illustrator

Mastery

InDesign

Mastery

After Effects

Broadcast Motion

Premiere Pro

Video Editing

C4D / Blender

Maya & 3ds Max

Brand Identity Marketing Design Campaign Design Digital & Web Design Print Production & Prepress Art Direction Broadcast Graphics Motion Graphics AI-Assisted Creative Workflows Orad / Chyron & SQL Packaging & Signage Presentation Systems

Initiate Collaboration

Let's Build Something Iconic.

Based in Los Angeles, CA. Available for senior brand direction, marketing campaigns, broadcast identity, and high-impact digital initiatives.

Derick.Quesada@gmail.com LinkedIn Profile Download Resume PDF

NEON FIST

International Action Cinema, Curated.

Neon Fist is a fictional broadcast and streaming brand built as a portfolio exercise — a full identity system for a network that treats international action cinema (Hong Kong, Japan, France, the U.S., and beyond, 1970s–1990s) not as a genre bin, but as a curated canon.

The premise borrows its editorial confidence from Criterion and MUBI and its attitude from genre-first networks like Shudder, then applies that thinking to a category — martial arts, crime, revenge, noir — that's rarely given this kind of care.

This project was built to demonstrate brand strategy, identity design, broadcast/motion design, and editorial systems thinking in one connected piece of work — not just a logo, but a brand that behaves consistently across every touchpoint it would actually need to survive on air.

Neon Fist

Brand Strategy & Design System

Design strategy

Neon Fist is built around a deliberate tension between pulp and prestige. Its programming—martial arts, crime, revenge, and noir—is unapologetically explosive, but its audience understands film as an art form. The brand needed to celebrate the energy of genre cinema while treating its films with editorial credibility.

The strategy combines the curatorial confidence of Criterion and MUBI with the genre-forward attitude of Shudder. Every design decision balances these opposing forces: high-impact imagery and identity, supported by disciplined typography, clear information hierarchy, and thoughtful curation.

The mark

The Neon Fist logo is an impact burst rather than a literal fist. Inspired by the visual language of manga and comic-book action, it captures the instant of impact in a distinctive, ownable shape.

Rendered in signal red with an offset teal halftone shadow, the mark references the imperfect registration of vintage comic printing. This gives the identity a tactile, printed quality that feels rooted in the genre. Designed to work across scales, the burst anchors the primary logo while remaining recognizable as a compact on-screen bug over live footage.

Color system

A focused four-color palette gives each color a defined role. Impact red establishes the identity and signals emphasis. Neon teal provides the network’s signature glow, evoking the rain-soaked streets and illuminated signage of its cinematic influences. Near-black creates a restrained, cinematic foundation that allows the imagery to lead.

Impact Red Identity & Emphasis

Neon Teal Signature Glow

Near-Black Cinematic Base

Muted Gold Film Titles Only

Muted gold is reserved exclusively for film titles. This distinction gives the programming a sense of value and importance while keeping the network’s visual elements from competing with the films themselves.

Typography

A single type family, IBM Plex Sans, serves two distinct functions. IBM Plex Sans Condensed Bold delivers the impact required for posters, headlines, and film titles, combining the density of theatrical one-sheets with the efficiency of broadcast graphics. IBM Plex Sans handles supporting copy and metadata, prioritizing clarity at smaller sizes.

IBM PLEX SANS CONDENSED BOLD Posters · Titles

IBM Plex Sans Regular Body · Metadata

The result is a consistent typographic system with two registers: expressive when promoting a film, restrained when guiding the viewer.

Imagery and texture

A consistent scanline and film-grain treatment unifies the key art across the system. Beyond creating visual cohesion between sourced and designed imagery, the texture connects Neon Fist to the broadcast and VHS era through which many of these films reached international audiences.

Rather than relying on nostalgia alone, the treatment uses the material character of that era as a deliberate part of the brand’s visual language.

Editorial system

The brand’s curatorial point of view is expressed through its information design. Film listings lead with the director and include country of origin and release year, framing the lineup as a repertory program rather than an undifferentiated content catalog.

Hard Boiled — John Woo · HK · 1992

The Street Fighter — Shigehiro Ozawa · JP · 1974

Fist of Fury — Lo Wei · HK · 1972

The copy follows the same editorial principle: confident, specific, and slightly defiant. Lines such as “Not the biggest action movies. The best action movies.” and “Every punch has a history.” establish a voice that champions the films rather than simply selling the channel.

“Not the biggest action movies. The best action movies.”

“Every punch has a history.”

Designed for broadcast and streaming

The identity was developed and tested against real-world production constraints, not just static applications. The on-screen bug was designed for the most demanding conditions: small scale, bright imagery, and fast-moving footage. Motion studies demonstrate its legibility over full action sequences.

The system extends across linear broadcast and streaming, including a prime-time schedule graphic, hero key art, network idents, and promotional motion pieces. Each application serves a different viewing context while maintaining a coherent identity.

My role

I led the project from concept and brand strategy through identity design, broadcast graphics, motion design, and editorial system development. The work was designed and produced using Adobe Creative Cloud, including Illustrator, Photoshop, and After Effects.

Neon Fist builds on five years of channel-branding experience at ION Media Networks, where I developed on-air identity systems and graphics templates within the demands of live broadcast. This project applies that production-informed approach to a genre I’m passionate about, bringing strategic clarity, visual character, and broadcast discipline into a unified brand system.

Brand Strategy Identity Design Broadcast & Motion Design Adobe Illustrator Photoshop After Effects ION Media Networks Background

mís

Food made for sharing.

mís is a fictional contemporary restaurant exploring the shared culinary traditions of Latin America and the Eastern Mediterranean. The project aims to create a distinctive, welcoming identity that brings cultural history and ingredient-driven food together through the concept of a shared table.

The creative direction balances editorial sophistication with warmth and accessibility, using expressive typography, rich earthy colors, and ingredient-led photography to build a cohesive brand experience that feels refined, contemporary, and inclusive.

“Food made for sharing.”

MÍS

Food made for sharing.

Design strategy

The identity negotiates editorial sophistication against warmth. The reference points are refined — a high-contrast serif, a disciplined palette, a menu structured like a magazine — but nothing about the brand is formal or distant. The name is set entirely in lowercase. The menu closes with an invitation, not a sign-off: “Order a little of everything. Stay a little longer.” Every decision serves the concept of the shared table: refined enough to feel considered, relaxed enough to feel like family.

The wordmark

The name is drawn in a modified Fraunces Bold — an editorial serif with soft, sculptural arches that give the lowercase letters a carved, almost architectural weight. The customization concentrates on a single gesture: the accent over the í is drawn oversized, as one organic, leaf-like stroke, and it is the only element that changes color with the terracotta accent. Everything else in the mark stays quiet, so that one small stroke — part leaf, part flame, garden and fire in a single mark — becomes the brand's signature. The wordmark is built to work anywhere the restaurant speaks: deep green or black on cream, and reversed in cream or green over photography, with the accent holding its color in every version.

Color system

A six-color palette drawn from the ingredients themselves. Deep green is the primary voice — herbs, leaves, the garden — carrying the wordmark, the dish names, and the menu's closing line. Warm cream is the ground: linen, paper, the table itself. Terracotta and brick red are the spice notes — sumac, dried chile, clay cookware — used with restraint for the accent mark, the ingredient lines, and the menu's fine rules. A dusty rose softens the system (rose water in the dessert, clay vessels on the table), and a near-black provides depth and the text color for descriptions. Rich and earthy, but every color has a job, and none of them shout.

Deep Green Primary Voice

Warm Cream Ground & Linen

Terracotta Accent & Rules

Brick Red Sumac & Chile

Dusty Rose Softness

Near-Black Depth & Text

Typography

Two typefaces, two registers. Fraunces Bold, modified, handles display: the wordmark, dish names, and section headers — set in letter-spaced capitals on the menu, centered over a thin terracotta rule, with the cadence of a magazine's table of contents. Instrumental Sans Regular carries everything conversational: the tagline, the ingredient lines, and the dish descriptions, in a warm, unhurried voice. Serif when the brand presents; sans when it talks to you.

Fraunces Bold Display · Wordmark · Headers

Instrumental Sans Regular Conversational · Descriptions

The menu as editorial system

The menu is where the concept has to prove itself, and it does it through editing. The structure abandons proteins and courses for how the food is actually eaten: To Begin, From the Fire & Sea, To Share, Something Sweet. Each dish gets exactly three ingredients and one sentence. The restraint is the design: the ingredient lines are where the two traditions meet, without commentary — a grilled octopus finished with ají amarillo, a lamb köfte built on sofrito, sumac over warm flatbread, an orange cake with pistachio and rose. No dish announces itself as fusion; the cultures simply share lines, the way they'll share the table. Descriptions stay sensory and brief — “Made to be passed around the table” — so the menu reads like an invitation rather than a catalog.

Photography and art direction

The photography is ingredient-led and follows the meal's own arc in three movements: the raw ingredients arranged as a still life (eggplant, sumac, chiles, pomegranate, olives, citrus, flatbread), the making (hands working dough on a floured board), and the shared table itself — every dish from the menu, plated and candlelit. The light is warm and low, the surfaces are wood and ceramic, nothing is sterile. Across all three, the wordmark signs the image in a consistent position and treatment — cream or deep green against the photograph, the terracotta accent intact — behaving like a quiet brand bug, so the photography and the identity never feel like separate projects.

My role

Concept, naming, brand identity, menu design, and photography art direction — end to end. mís is a self-initiated concept project, created to explore how a brand system can carry a cultural idea — two traditions, one table — consistently across print, identity, and imagery.

Concept & Naming Brand Identity Menu Design Photography Art Direction Editorial Systems