Meet Jeri Evan | Experiential Designer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Jeri Evan and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jeri, we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking.
Risk has played a central role in my career, although it’s rarely looked like one dramatic leap. More often it’s meant continuing forward without having a complete map of where the next decision would lead, or even having a map at all.

Entering experiential design was one example. I had developed a strong visual language through music merchandise, posters, and independent creative work, but I had no formal roadmap into large-scale campaign design. Saying yes to my first experiential opportunity required me to trust that the skills I had already developed could translate into a field I didn’t fully understand yet.

That experience changed how I think about risk. I no longer believe that we need to feel completely qualified before entering unfamiliar territory. Sometimes the opportunity itself reveals what our existing skills are capable of becoming.

Building an independent career has required a similar tolerance for uncertainty. There is no clearly defined ladder, no guaranteed sequence of promotions, and no single organization responsible for recognizing how the work is evolving. A freelance career is built across different projects, teams, cities, and industries, often long before the larger pattern becomes visible.

Because of that, I’ve learned that taking ownership of your career also means taking ownership of its story. Making the work is only part of the job. Maintaining an archive, clearly articulating your role, and recognizing the patterns in your evolution help communicate the larger narrative that no individual project can tell on its own.

Risk-taking, to me, doesn’t mean acting recklessly or without fear. It means accepting that certainty isn’t always available before an important decision. It means preparing as thoroughly as possible, trusting that your skills can carry you into unfamiliar territory, and remaining open to an outcome that may look totally different from the one you originally imagined.

The same instinct shapes the way I travel. I’m drawn to places that require a little more effort to reach. I naturally gravitate toward remote coastlines, rural landscapes, unfamiliar roads, and experiences that ask me to move beyond what is comfortable or predictable.

In both my life and my work, risk has meant entering unfamiliar territory and allowing the experience to change my understanding of what is possible.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
My career as a Designer started with my first job at a travel company in Boston’s Seaport. I spent my days laying out catalogs for 14-day expeditions to Torres del Paine and the pyramids of Egypt, sitting in a cubicle and imagining myself inside the photographs I was placing on the page.

Eight years later, I never expected that period of my life to feel so relevant.

This year has taken me to the northeast coast of the Dominican Republic and a guest ranch in rural New Mexico, two trips I booked partly to recover from the burnout of working with seven agencies across 16 marketing campaigns in the first half of 2026 alone. I visited rural rice farms, explored Taíno caves in Los Haitises National Park, rode horses along the coast, and climbed Montaña Redonda. I found some of the most remote and tranquil places I could reach, provided I was willing to fly six and a half hours and drive another two and a half into the wilderness with no cell service.

There was something surreal about finally stepping into the kinds of images I had once arranged from behind a desk, but the path between those two moments was anything but straightforward.

I entered experiential marketing almost entirely by accident. After being laid off from the travel company at the beginning of the pandemic, I began designing band merchandise for independent record labels, artist management companies, and print shops in Los Angeles that had discovered my work online. At the time, my greatest strength was creating bold poster graphics and zine-inspired illustrations.

Through relationships that formed organically, I gradually moved into concept art, visual identity, and large-scale campaign design. When I was first referred to an experiential marketing agency, I had to Google what “experiential marketing” meant.

Three years later, I have contributed to over 50 campaigns across a wide range of agencies and creative partners, primarily in the music and entertainment industries. My work has included projects for Amazon MGM Studios, Apple TV+, DC Studios, Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Netflix, Spotify, Universal, Olivia Rodrigo, and The Weeknd, among many others.

What sets my work apart is my ability to build a visual world from the ground up and carry it across many different physical touchpoints. A campaign may begin with a mood, a story, or a loose creative direction, and my role is often to translate that into a cohesive identity expressed through environmental graphics, signage, packaging, printed collateral, digital assets, and spatial details. I’m most excited by projects where design isn’t confined to a screen, but becomes something people can physically enter and experience.

For most of my career, my client base has been concentrated in Los Angeles and rooted in the music and entertainment industries where I got my start. In 2026, that began to shift. My work in luxury, beauty, and fashion has grown to rival the industries that first established my practice. Recently, I’ve designed cosmetics campaign materials for Sephora, created a pitch deck for an emerging luxury designer to present to the CFDA, designed NYFW collateral for Carolina Herrera, developed SS25 and FW25 campaign materials for Canada Goose, and contributed gift packaging to Bloomingdale’s holiday campaign.

The most meaningful turning point for me was developing the visual identity for Sports Illustrated Swimsuit’s launch week in New York City. Years earlier, I had worked as a high-fashion model and often felt alienated by the industry’s narrow standards. I’ve always admired Sports Illustrated Swimsuit for championing a broader and more celebratory vision of beauty. When people suggested I wasn’t thin enough to fit the traditional fashion mold, I would joke that I was going to model for Sports Illustrated someday.

I didn’t ultimately arrive there as a model. I arrived as the designer helping to shape the visual world around the women being celebrated.That project represented something bigger to me. Careers don’t always develop in the form we originally imagine, and progress is rarely as linear as it appears from the outside. The challenges of freelancing, uncertainty, burnout, shifting industries, and constantly adapting to new teams have taught me to remain open to unexpected forms of arrival.

What I want people to understand about my story is that creative evolution often happens before we have the language for it. My practice started with album artwork and merchandise, expanded into physical environments and work for global brands, and now moves somewhere in between entertainment, fashion, beauty, and experiential design. The connecting thread is my interest in building memorable visual worlds and making people feel as though they’ve stepped inside a story.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
My favorite place to visit in LA is Mel’s Drive-In off Hollywood Boulevard, usually followed by a walk past the TCL Chinese Theatre. I genuinely love being a tourist in LA, no matter how much time I’ve spent here.

I’ve gone to Mel’s at all hours, but my favorite visit was probably around 11:30 at night, when I stopped for coffee and pancakes after working remotely from The Hollywood Roosevelt. I had to log back on at 1 AM for a New York client, so it was less of a glamorous Hollywood evening and more of a very specific freelance production-life intermission.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
My shoutout goes to anyone who feels like they’re moving in the wrong direction. Sometimes the path only makes sense once you’re far enough along to look back. The detours usually explain themselves later.

Website: https://www.jerievan.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jerievan

Image Credits
Header Portrait: Chris Dempsey
Agency Partners: New Moon, IHEARTCOMIX