Principal · Joshi Design LLC · Founded 2002 · Active practice: 2007–2022
Brand Strategy · Innovation · Creative Direction · Design-Technology
Beauty and anthropological awareness should inform commercial design in the digital age.
Making the Extraordinary Relatable. How do we create a visual, tactile, and imaginative experience that will invite a global audience to interact with this product?
Founded and led a five-person strategic design practice in New York spanning fifteen years. Directed brand strategy, creative, and production across beauty, luxury fragrance, confectionery, housewares, toys, and retail, from concept through execution.
Partnered directly with Fortune 500 companies, founder-led brands, and startups, including L'Oréal across three divisions, Hasbro across three successive programs, and Godiva across eight years of seasonal collections. Approved supplier to L'Oréal (10-year tenure) and Johnson & Johnson. Multi-year relationships with senior decision-makers produced brand systems, original intellectual property, and consumer experiences, and brought them to market. In two cases (L'arganique Beauté, Casabella), contributed to the conditions for acquisition.
Developed a codified approach to brand campaigns, design systems, and execution.
Daring expressions of color, with meticulous attention to image-making, developed for fashion, fragrance, cosmetics, body care, and consumer brands. The work was designed to attract the eye and suggest joy, serenity, and escape.
Information translated for clarity and visual impact. Annual reports, brochures, websites, and public relations materials were designed to make facts easier to locate, understand, and use.
Learning environments designed as complete experiences. In classrooms, museums, retail, and product design, the work was shaped to capture attention, engage imagination, and support discovery.
Prior to building Joshi Design in 2007, Jeannie Joshi held an in-house corporate design leadership role at Bath & Body Works, part of L Brands, Inc., where she led design direction and brand management across four flagship beauty brands. Her work included the Wexler skincare line for Dr. Patricia Wexler, a prominent New York City dermatologist known for cosmetic dermatology, as well as Henri Bendel luxury fragrance and body care collection, Les Couvent des Minimes, L'Occitane's private-label personal care collection, and the American Girl beauty collection.
Following her Bath & Body Works tenure, she continued advising on the Wexler collection briefly while beginning full-time graduate study at Parsons, The New School for Design, and building the studio practice. She completed her MFA in Design and Technology in 2008, and that training went on to shape the studio's interdisciplinary approach, bridging physical and digital design seamlessly.
The work began with SoftSheen-Carson and expanded to Multicultural Beauty and the L'Oréal Kids World personal care range, developing category programs, visual systems, and packaging concepts used to evaluate direction.
Worked as the founder's right hand in shaping the brand from a private-label product into a business that achieved a successful acquisition. The work supported placements at the Emmy Awards and Critics' Choice Awards, and the hero fragrance won Best New Premium Fragrance at the Pure Beauty Global Awards three years in a row. Exclusive retail partnership with The Shops at Ritz-Carlton.
Created packaging and original artwork for seasonal gift collections across an eight-year partnership, helping refresh the brand's presentation for recurring holiday programs.
Developed an original artist collection for the product line, including surface patterns, packaging systems, large-format product graphics, and extensions across cleaning tools. The collection replaced licensed Keith Haring graphics with brand-owned intellectual property. Featured in Graphic Design USA and Home Furnishings News. Worldwide retail rollout. Highest revenue in five years.
Designed modular retail environments and merchandising systems for Playskool, shown at the Hong Kong International Toy Fair and adopted for nationwide deployment. The work expanded across Tonka, Playskool, and a combined Vehicles Merchandising program that brought Tonka, Transformers, and Star Wars together within a single retail aisle.
Shaped a self-service digital experience for four prestige brands: American Beauty, Flirt, Good Skin, and Grassroots, uniting distinct visual identities within a shared navigational system. Deployed at the Short Hills flagship in New Jersey.
Co-led a complete packaging restage with the in-house creative team, delivering updated pack design across the range and a brand book documenting the brand system and imagery. The work moved to market without consumer testing, based on the strength of the design.
Created holiday gift packaging for the Signature Cookie Collection. The first season established the visual language for a single gift box; the second expanded to three SKUs and a cohesive line look across the holiday range.
| Vertical | Client | Engagement |
|---|---|---|
| Beauty | L’Oréal | Concepts, imagery, and packaging for category programs across three divisions spanning nine years |
| Confectionery | Godiva | Seasonal gift packaging over an eight-year partnership |
| Luxury fragrance | L’arganique Beauté | Brand narrative, systems, and Ritz-Carlton retail over six years; brand acquired |
| Toys + retail | Hasbro | Retail environments and merchandising across three programs |
| Personal care | Johnson & Johnson | Packaging restage and brand book for Carefree |
| Housewares | Casabella | Original artist collection with worldwide rollout; brand acquired |
| Retail | Kohl’s | In-store digital beauty experience, via agency partner |
| Food + gifting | Pepperidge Farm | Three seasonal programs |
Designing for complexity: problem framing, vision building, exploration.
Futures thinking, systems thinking.
Hypothesis building.
Storytelling.
The future we want. How might we get there?
Research, ethnographic probes.
This is how we could get there.
Scope adjusts to the client. Some engagements are strategy only; others move through all three phases.
Key project questions: what is the story? Ideas, analysis (research), portfolio of options.
Branding or product experience. Develop brand/design brief. Market content (strategy). Technology selection. Prototype.
Assets, guidelines, specifications, and partner coordination. Hand off to the client's team.
| Envision | Experience | Delivery | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Customer + market | Who are they, and what do they need? | Design for how they see, shop, and choose. | Approved direction for the market. |
| Technology + behavior | How do people discover, try, and buy? | Choose the right format and medium. Prototype to prove it works. | Specifications and partner coordination for the build. |
| Brand + story | What should this brand promise, and what role should it play? | Design the brand system and campaign across packaging, retail, digital, and communications. | Finished assets and guidelines. |
| Competition + positioning | Who else is here, and where do we stand? | Own territory the competition does not. | Shelf-ready and distinct. |
| Operations + architecture | What needs to be in place to make this work? | Verify the design can be manufactured at scale. | Hand off to the client's team. |
| Outcome | Understand | Adapt | Appropriate |
| Design management runs continuously across all phases. | |||
| L'Oréal | L'arganique | Casabella | Hasbro | Godiva | J&J | Kohl's | Pepperidge Farm | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Positioning + market framing | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | ||
| Concept + pipeline work | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | |||
| Brand systems + packaging | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | ||
| Strategic imagery | ● | ● | ● | ● | ||||
| Consumer experience | ● | ● | ● | ● | ||||
| Final delivery | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● | ● |
"The new pattern is perfect for Casabella: it's very strategic and reinforces our heritage of being a trend setter in the industry for colors, patterns and product design. It also makes everyone smile when they see it, and that is exactly what you would expect from Casabella."
— Casabella
The creative director and team selected a striped pattern "for its movement and style" and dubbed it "The Artist Collection."
"Saturated, high-spectrum/HD colors will appeal to millennials as well as other demographic groups. While these patterns are a big trend in beauty packaging, Casabella was smart to capitalize on this for their niche."
— Graphic Design USA
"Luxury brands are master storytellers, their new offerings have us hooked before we are even present... they take us on a journey, engaging the senses, creating memories, leaving their footprint, integrating the brand into our lifestyles."
— Jeannie Joshi, Beauty Packaging Magazine
"People are searching for more unique experiences, products with purpose, and design that is not just good, but also for the greater good."
— "Luxury Newly Defined," Beauty Packaging Magazine
"How might spirituality contribute meaningfully to beauty and wellness? I propose a shift in perspective, an enlightened approach — with less attention paid to the external and more to the internal."
— "Transcendent Beauty," Global Cosmetic Industry
The client's business strategy is where we start
Committed to the brand in an anthropological sense, becoming participant-observers
The discovery process of learning a client's needs, calling on talented consultants when needed
Harmonizing the analytic and creative
Translating the product's promise into a visual campaign that connects faster and more deeply than words alone
Creating an elegant solution that speaks to the intended consumer in all dimensions