Rachel Been  |   415.216.8853   |   rachelbeen@gmail.com

WORK & PRODUCT EXPERIENCE

CREATIVE DIRECTOR, BILLBOARD.COM

New York, (Art Director, April 2010–September 2011 | Creative Director September 2011-Present)

Responsibilities

  1. Photo director for Billboard.com; lead art direction and concept development of portrait, live, fashion and franchise shoots with photographers.
  2. Design director for Billboard.com; design all new digital products, art directing redesigns and subsites such as the Billboard Music Awards.
  3. Primary producer and manager of production for the site, including retouching and post-production of photography, production of all design assets, delivering code for design implementation and managing an assistant producer.
  4. Primary photographer for all in-studio performances and portraiture for Billboard.com.
  5. Liaison with advertising department to develop all digital branding and visuals for premium clients.

Product Launches & Achievements

  1. Managed the successful redesign of Billboard.com’s photogallery experience, which has improved Billboard’s photography metrics by 300%.
  2. Art Directed the relaunch of the Billboard Music Awards 2012 website which saw a 600% traffic increase in the first two days of launch and resulted in the most successful day in Billboard.com history. Photographed and produced the galleries, which represented 77% of site traffic.
  3. Orchestrated the re-emphasis of original photo content through photographing talent and developing a freelance photographer budget which has been instrumental in increasing traffic to Billboard.com and brand reputation.
  4. Spearheaded an early partnership with Instagram to extend Billboard’s brand into more innovative social media channels. Billboard now has over 260,000 followers - the fastest growing social platform for Billboard.com.
  5. Concepted and launched Billboard’s style channel, which has brought on such sponsors as Cotton and BCBG and expanded Billboard’s reach into new market demographics.

PHOTO EDITOR, PHOTOGRAPHER AND DESIGN LIAISON, AOL

New York, 2007–2010; Washington, D.C., 2006–2007

Responsibilities

  1. Primary photo editor of Stylelist.com, Slashfood.com and KitchenDaily. Headed content development and strategy, production and post–production of photography, multimedia and audio pieces and managed hiring of freelance photographers.
  2. Producer and art director on all style and food shoots, including seasonal fashion, fashion week, beauty and makeovers, American style franchises and interviews with celebrity chefs. Photographer of celebrity portraiture, food editorials and fashion for a variety of AOL channels.
  3. Interdepartmental liaison between photography and the design department to design multimedia templates, standardized photo experiences and network improvements for the UI/UX of photographic experiences.
  4. Served as the lead on Musica, AOL’s bilingual Latino channel: produced galleries, hired talent, art directed, photographed and constructed multimedia packages in Spanish.

Product Launches & Achievements

  1. Managed the photography for the redesign of Stylelist.com and Slashfood.com.
  2. Managed the photography and defined the aesthetic direction for the launch of KitchenDaily.com.
  3. Launched AOL’s first fullscreen multimedia-enabled gallery experience and trained the photography staff on audio production and gallery programming.  
  4. Shot exclusive food, fashion, music and portraiture photography for Slashfood, KitchenDaily.com, Stylelist.com, Spinner, AOL Music, AOL Latino and AOL News.

LIBRARY ASSISTANT, MAGNUM PHOTOS

New York, April 2004 – Sept. 2004

  1. Organized slides, prints, negatives and digital files within the Magnum library for clients and the public.

STUDIO PHOTOGRAPHER AND PHOTO EDITOR, THE SMITHSONIAN

Washington, D.C., June 2002 – Sept. 2002

  1. Photographed and post-produced still life and the Smithsonian Folklife Festival for the Smithsonian archives.

EDUCATION

University of California - Los Angeles (UCLA)

BA, Art History, May 2006

Director of Photography, UCLA Daily Bruin, Sept. 2003 – June 2004

  1. Led department of 25 photographers/interns; primary editor of daily publication (circulation 30,000).
  2. Photographed a wide variety of hard news, portraiture, illustration and photo stories over four years.

SKILLS

  1. Adobe Suite, HTML/CSS/JS, responsive design frameworks, a variety of CMS and publishing platforms, Final Cut Pro, Soundtrack Pro, Pro Tools; SEO strategies and analytics.
  2. Extensive familiarity with photo archives and major image services and agencies.
  3. Excellent photo retouching and post-production skills.
  4. Experienced with Canon and Nikon digital systems, medium format, film, video, studio lighting and professional audio recording gear.