Visual Merchandising Design Leader & Product Designer
​ My name is Chris Shields and I have had a very exciting, and interesting, 18+ year career with Hallmark Cards, Inc.
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For the last few years, my role has been as the Visual Merchandising Design Leader for Hallmark Home and Gifts. In this position, it has been my responsibility to manage their trade shows and showrooms, from end to end. These responsibilities included planning the overall look, the flow, and continuity of the floor plan, taking into consideration the buyer's needs and prioritization of the product offerings for each of the different brands, while overseeing fabrication, construction, and installation.
Other aspects included designing fixtures and furniture that highlighted and showed off the products, in addition to making the products easily shoppable for buyers. It is my job to model (CAD), prototype, then build these fixtures and furniture, or release build specs to our internal Model Shop to be built on my behalf. Often times I will work alongside, and in collaboration with, our engineers and carpenters.
On occasion, we will use found furniture and fixtures. In these cases it is my job to make sure that the found items are an appropriate fit for a brand, are in good working order and/or can be modified to suit our needs.
It is also my responsibility to guide the merchandising direction, as well as lead and manage a team to bring the vision and floor plans to life. Members included my reports and those assigned to help out, such as internal carpenters, hired labor on location, and contracted merchandisers. Through this role, I have been fortunate enough to work with some of the top talents in the field.
In addition to the design work, I am tasked with the logistical aspects of delivering the fixtures, along with products, to and from, the shows, installation, and solving issues as obstacles arise.
Budgeting and monitoring project costs is another fundamental facet of my job. This can be accomplished through design elements, material selection, creative approaches to construction, and managing logistics.
Prior to my current role as the VMDL, I was tasked with the responsibility of designing products for Hallmark Home and Gifts. This included seeking out, and applying, new capabilities and innovations in order to create new and interesting products to support our brands and better help people connect. This provided me with ample opportunity to learn a large range of modeling techniques, alongside prototyping methods from additive and subtractive prototyping to carpentry to using Arduino. (A full list can be found under "Proficiencies").
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REWIND
I started at Hallmark Cards, Inc in 2001 in the Greeting Card department. My initial year was spent designing what is referred to as "ink on paper" 99¢ greetings, which are just that; printed cards without secondary processes. Working my way up, I moved on to greeting card teams with more design complexity and secondary processes.
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However, the real evolution of my career began when I was on the Christmas greeting card team. Around this time cards with sound and light in them were gaining in popularity and I was assigned to work on them for our team.
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In 2006, Hallmark launched a "New Concept Development" team to further explore innovations in greeting cards and build on the success of song cards. I was one of the original members of this team which was made up of designers, illustrators, and engineers.
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Over the years, this team went through an evolution from Greetings innovations to Gift innovations to Home Decor and Gifts. Along the way, I continued to grow and foster my skills in 3D modeling, prototyping, and product design.
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As my skills evolved, so did my career. I was tasked with various leadership roles, and an array of different responsibilities, until my most recent role of VM Leader.
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