Design Projects for

CountryMax Stores

Employee Apparel

This project was an employee apparel redesign centered around the CountryMax’s tagline — ‘For your REAL life.’ The brief was twofold: to encourage increased store employee representation through engaging graphics that they would want to wear on shift, and to highlight specific departments, starting with the 4 most popular (wild bird, garden, barn, & pet). I started with the circular badge shape for continuity, that each individual illustration could be set within. The intention is to expand with further designs for the rest of the departments and eventually print more items like stickers. The designs were so popular with our vendors, that they were fully funded in sponsorship dollars, with enough excess to purchase windbreakers for every employee as well.

Barn Burner Hot Sauce

The brief here was to design branding, packaging, and promotion for a new private label brand of specialty hot sauces - Barn Burner! The name was aptly chosen, given the company’s barn shaped storefronts and rural customer focus. Bold design with shelf appeal was the main prompt, with flexibility to expand to more flavors down the line.

Custom Patterns

Silent Scream Ghost Pepper
Banana Chipotle Rum
Pucker Up Pineapple
Mango Meets Habanero
The Carolina Reaper
Country-Style Cayenne

Maple Sugaring Booklet

CountryMax sells a kit with supplies to tap your own maple trees to make your own syrup. To upgrade the kit in 2023, we wanted to design our own informational booklet that takes a deeper dive into the process than the few paragraphs on the packaging. It was also an opportunity to highlight other related products under our Hearth & Homestead™ private label brand.

Color palette and custom illustrations for booklet.

Homegrown Garden Photo Contest

Every year, CountryMax hosts a handful of photo submission contests, where customers can compete on social voting platforms to win gift cards. They typically range from holiday themes to pets and backyard birds, but in the summer of 2022 we decided to launch the Homegrown Garden theme. I led the campaign through concept, materials sourcing, promotional design, and rollout. We had custom garden stakes made that customers could pick up for free at any of our locations, place in their garden, and submit a photo of what they were growing - from gorgeous flowers to impressive fruits and vegetables.