FTD College Rose Collection

Turning School Spirit Into a Scalable Gifting Experience

FTD created the College Rose Collection to transform university pride into a premium, giftable product unlike anything else in the floral category. Beginning with 19 universities and eventually expanding to 58, the collection combined licensed school identities, custom packaging, e-commerce, and campaign creative within one scalable system.

Role

Creative Services Manager

Leadership

Five-person creative team

Scope

Creative concept, art direction, team direction, graphic design, packaging design, and digital and print campaign development for the collection

01 Context

Creating a New Gifting Category

FTD saw an opportunity to reach college sports fans with a proprietary floral collection designed around university pride. The College Rose Collection gave students, alumni, and dedicated fans a new way to celebrate their school affiliations through gifting.

The collection also created meaningful differentiation for FTD. Rather than competing with another conventional floral arrangement, the company could offer a distinctive product at the intersection of flowers, licensed collegiate merchandise, and fan culture.

Beginning with 19 universities, the collection was conceived as an expandable platform capable of supporting additional schools and reaching a broader national audience over time.

Every university brought its own colors, marks, typography, traditions, and licensing requirements. The creative challenge was to preserve those distinct identities without allowing the collection to become visually fragmented.

Each product needed to feel immediately recognizable to that school’s fans while maintaining the premium presentation expected of an FTD gift. At the same time, the collection needed enough visual consistency for consumers to understand that every school-specific product belonged to one cohesive program.

The creative system also had to translate across custom packaging, e-commerce, print collateral, and campaign materials while remaining flexible enough to support continued expansion.

02 The Challenge

Unifying Distinct University Identities

03 Role

Leading Concept Through Campaign Execution

As Creative Services Manager, I led the creative concept, art direction, graphic design, packaging design, and digital and print campaign development for the collection. I also presented the work to internal stakeholders and helped guide it from the initial idea through execution.

I led the internal creative team while partnering with merchandising, licensing and legal stakeholders, and outside production vendors. My role connected the overarching creative concept with the detailed design and production requirements needed to bring a licensed, multichannel product collection to market.

The central creative idea was simple: make school spirit giftable.

We positioned the College Rose Collection as a premium expression of fandom rather than conventional collegiate merchandise. Each rose featured its university’s colors and was presented in custom packaging designed to feel distinctive, celebratory, and appropriate for gifting.

To balance school individuality with collection-wide consistency, I created a shared visual system built around official university colors, marks and typography, school-specific messaging, consistent photography and layouts, and a recognizable FTD College Rose Collection identity.

The approach allowed each university to retain its own character while clearly belonging to the larger collection. Just as importantly, the system made it possible to introduce additional schools without reinventing the creative direction for every launch.

04 Direction

Making School Spirit Giftable

05 Execution

One Idea Across Every Touchpoint

The College Rose Collection extended across the complete customer experience.

Custom packaging gave each university’s rose a distinctive, premium presentation. The collection identity connected the individual products under one recognizable system, while the e-commerce experience introduced the concept and helped customers explore school-specific offerings.

Print advertising, collateral, and university-specific campaign assets carried the creative direction into additional channels. Consistent photography and layouts unified the executions while official colors, marks, typography, and messaging preserved the individuality of each school.

Together, these elements transformed the collection from a series of individual products into a cohesive brand and campaign platform capable of supporting multiple universities, channels, and phases of growth.

06 Business Impact

Scaling From 19 to 58

The College Rose Collection launched with 19 universities and ultimately expanded to 58. That growth demonstrated that the creative system could accommodate substantial expansion while preserving the individual identity of every participating school.

The collection gained broader visibility and continued leadership support, establishing a differentiated idea within the floral category and giving FTD a proprietary platform for reaching college sports fans.

For me, the project demonstrates the ability to move fluidly between concept development, art direction, packaging, campaign creative, and hands-on design. More importantly, it shows how a strong creative idea—supported by a flexible and repeatable system—can enable growth without sacrificing brand clarity or executional quality.

I'm always interested in connecting with organizations and leaders who value creativity, clarity, and impact.

I'm interested in opportunities to lead creative organizations where brand, people, and business strategy intersect. Whether building a team, strengthening a brand, or helping an organization navigate growth and change, I'm energized by creating environments where creativity becomes a competitive advantage.