Stephen Gates

Current

• Creative Director at Starwood Hotels & Resorts

Past

• Associate Creative Director at Temerlin McClain
• Freelance Creative Director and Senior Designer at StephenGates.com
• Interactive Creative Director at Vertis

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Education

• Syracuse University

Recommended

3 people have recommended Stephen

Connections

114 connections

Industry

Marketing and Advertising

Websites

• My Portfolio
• My Blog

Stephen Gates’s Summary

I’ve been in the advertising business almost my whole life. I am a designer and second generation creative director and an hour from now I will probably be locked away in my studio slowly going blind working on a new design or my blog. That has to be love or insanity – since it is advertising it is probably a bit of both.

Stephen Gates’s Specialties:

• Extensive experience leading and inspiring award winning creative teams through all steps of the creative process.
• Proven ability to bring together and lead online and offline creative teams to create cross channel global integrated advertising concepts.
• Proven ability to grow existing accounts and win high profile new business with strong client relationships and ideas that balance a creative expression with a results
oriented commercial responsibility.

Stephen Gates’s Experience

• Creative Director

  Starwood Hotels & Resorts

  (Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; HOT; Hospitality industry)

  September 2006 — Present (2 years 11 months)

  Responsible for the online advertising and web site development vision, strategy and creative direction for all Starwood brands worldwide which generate in excess of 1.6 billion dollars a year in revenue. The work is created by a combination of my internal creative team as well as working with and managed external agencies like BBDO Atmosphere, Avenue A / Razorfish, Firstborn Multimedia, North Kindgom, EVB, Domani Studios, Deutch and others.
  
  clients: St. Regis, W Hotels, Le Meridien, Sheraton, Westin, Element, Aloft , Four Points, The Luxury Collection and Starwood Preferred Guest.

• Associate Creative Director

  Temerlin McClain

  (Public Company; 501-1000 employees; Marketing and Advertising industry)

  January 2003 — August 2006 (3 years 8 months)

  Managed and developed a high level creative team of art directors, writers, information architects and freelance staff by defining the strategy, direction and goals for online advertising and web site development projects. Develop team members skills by identifying and providing the needed training, coaching and mentoring. Worked to create top level creative execution, creative strategy, brand development, concepting and visual design for a wide variety of clients.
  
  clients: American Airlines, Exxon Mobil, Subaru, Sprint, Toshiba, Texas Instruments, Texas Tourism, Nortel Networks, Adams Golf, University of Houston, Verizon Superpages.com, VanCliburn Foundation, Bell Helicopter,, oneworld airline alliance, Mariloff Diamonds Planet Cancer, IgoUgo.com and Nationwide Insurance
  
  new business won: Venetian Hotel and Casino, , ExxonMobil, Verizon SuperPages, Sprint Business solutions, oneworld global airline alliance, PayDay One on-line, AvidGolfer Magazine and ProStaff

• Freelance Creative Director and Senior Designer

  StephenGates.com

  (Marketing and Advertising industry)

  January 2002 — January 2003 (1 year 1 month)

  Managed, directed, and consulted with high level creative teams for a wide variety of ad agencies and corporate clients. Work included creative strategy, concept, visual design and brand development for print and web.
  
  clients EDS, i2 Technology, U.S. Air Force, Mothers Against Drunk Driving (M.A.D.D)., Pizza Hut, TGI Friday's, Mattress Firm, Subaru, Toshiba, Tribal DDB, Brann Forbes, Pyro Brand Development, and Temerlin McClain

• Interactive Creative Director

  Vertis

  (Privately Held; 201-500 employees; Marketing and Advertising industry)

  1999 — 2001 (2 years)

  Managed and worked with high level creative team of art directors, writers, and information architects. Work included creative strategy, concept, visual design and brand development for a wide variety of clients.
  
  clients: Serta, Disney, Motorola, AMD, Intel, Price Waterhouse, Honda, Acura, Toyota, American Dairy Brands, Garden Ridge
  
  new business won: Serta web site design , Intel web site design , Honda & Acura Motors interactive advertising, GardenRidge web site and online advertising, and Disney/Buena Vista Home Entertainment interactive advertising.

Stephen Gates’s Education

• Syracuse University

  BFA , Computer Graphics , 1991 — 1995

Additional Information

Stephen Gates’s Websites:

• My Portfolio
• My Blog

Stephen Gates’s Interests:

Design, Typography, Cooking, Wine, PS3, Kidrobot, Travel, Takashi Murakami, Pittsburgh Steelers

Stephen Gates’s Groups:

Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum - Design Watch
ONE Club
The Art Director Club

Stephen Gates’s Honors:

Partial list includes:

Communication Arts - 2 Site of the Week awards and Design Interact interview

Cannes Cyber Lions - 1 award

CLIO Awards - Best self-promotional web site - tm-interactive.com

Webby Awards - 2 finalists and 5 honorees

ACM SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics Pioneer Award (1 of 7 awarded worldwide)

ADDY Awards - 29 local, regional and national awards including the first campaign to ever win Best Integrated Campaign and Best of Show Regional with no TV in the campaign.

WebAwards - 20 awards

Adobe Site of the Day - 6 awards

New York Festivals - 3 awards

American Design Awards - 9 awards

My blog is a 2008 Webby Awards Honoree for Best Personal Site, HOW Magazine Top 10 site and is listed on the AdAge Magazine Power 150.

Stephen Gates’s Contact Settings

Interested In:

• career opportunities
• consulting offers
• job inquiries
• expertise requests
• reference requests
• getting back in touch