Jill Simmons Smith

Illustrator and lettering designer with 20+ years of experience creating playful, commercially focused artwork for digital products, crafting, and licensing. Skilled in character illustration, seasonal collections, typography, and production-ready artwork using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. Experienced in running a creative ecommerce business and producing weekly marketing content, with a strong ability to bring warmth, humor, and personality to customer-facing designs.

CAREER HIGHLIGHT - Created commercial illustration and font collections for nationally recognized craft brands, with artwork featured on products sold through Walmart, Michaels, and fabric and quilting retailers, including Robert Kaufman and Poppy Cotton.

OWNER & CREATIVE DIRECTOR at ILLUSTRATION INK (2016 – Present)

Founded and lead an independent creative business creating playful character illustrations, lettering, graphics, and surface patterns for licensing and digital sales. Direct projects from concept through production-ready artwork, bringing warmth, humor, and a cohesive visual style to commercial collections.

• Designed and published more than 15,000 original illustrations, including playful characters, spot illustrations, lettering, and cohesive seasonal collections.
• Developed coordinated artwork and product concepts for greeting cards, stickers, stationery, apparel, packaging, and merchandise.
• Created over 7,000 original fonts spanning handwriting, decorative, classroom, and commercial-use styles.
• Prepared clean, production-ready illustrations, SVG files, clip art, and design resources for online marketplaces and licensing channels.
• Produced original surface pattern designs for fabric, stationery, home décor, and other licensed products.
• Created weekly promotional emails and graphics for more than 14 years, bringing personality and consistent branding to customer communications.
• Managed projects from concept through publication, balancing frequent releases with quality, consistency, and attention to detail.
• Directed product development, branding, marketing, licensing, customer support, and online sales for an independent creative business..

SENIOR ILLUSTRATOR & GRAPHIC DESIGNER at INSPIRE GRAPHICS (2004 – 2016)

Created original artwork, illustrations, fonts, and graphic collections for leading manufacturers in the crafting and scrapbooking industry.

• Designed cohesive commercial illustration collections for nationally recognized craft and scrapbook brands.
• Created coordinated artwork for paper collections, embellishments, stamps, cutting files, and printable products.
• Collaborated with creative teams to develop trend-driven product lines aligned with each brand’s visual style.
• Created custom typography, decorative lettering, and supporting graphic elements for manufactured products.
• Prepared clean, production-ready files while meeting strict quality standards and release deadlines.

Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design and Illustration – Boise State University (1997 – 2000)