Hot Topic
Visual Merchandising Coordinator — Marketing Department
As a Visual Merchandising Coordinator, I oversee the creation of monthly signage sent to stores using Adobe applications. My responsibilities also include:
Communicate with cross-functional HQ partners and vendors to ensure shipping dates are met
Create detailed spreadsheets for distribution; keep track of all shipment tracking information
Research, coordinate, and test new rollouts including fixtures, graphics, and signage
Participate in floor-sets, merchandise updates, launches and in-store visual set-ups
Photograph and write verbiage for visual directives ensuring to meet the deadlines set forth by the Visual Department Management Team
Create and communicate Visual Training initiatives as they pertain to merchandising for the field teams to reference
Make needed formatting adjustments to images for printing
Support Visual Manager team with planogram refresher needs including image editing and document creation
My Work
A Time Lapse of putting together the wall is featured here!
Our HQ Rock Wall features Hot Topic's top 10 best-selling artist tees from 2012-2021 in the middle of the wall, surrounded by our favorite acts over the years. Hot Topic ran in-store promotions of 40% off one music tee per customer alongside gift-with-purchase buttons and festival ticket giveaways.
Top Ten Room Plexis — Hot Topic and BoxLunch
The Top Ten Room is one of HQ's largest and most frequently used meeting rooms. The Top Ten Room wall features Hot Topic's best-selling novelty licenses from 2015-2022 (left) and BoxLunch's best-selling novelty licenses from 2015-2022 (right). BoxLunch and Hot Topic share the HQ space since BoxLunch is our sister company. Though I work for Hot Topic, BoxLunch's Visual Merchandising team partnered with me, leading me to create plexi inserts for them for this project.
Stores
The plexis, merchandising plan-o-grams, and visuals are displayed and implemented in over 600 brick-and-mortar Hot Topic stores.
Monthly Signage and Creative Cloud Work
The contact sheets above are sent to stores monthly to alert them of what plexi inserts they will receive. Through the artwork I receive from vendors, I Photoshop the illustrations for plexi inserts and contact sheets. Using InDesign to transpose the Photoshopped artwork onto the contact sheets, all Hot Topic stores in the United States and Canada can ensure they received all the appropriate inserts for their store.