PROJECT
Positioning Bartesian as the easy, elevated way to make a proper cocktail at home through photo and video built around lifestyle and ease of use.
ROLE
Art Director, Producer
COMPANY
Bartesian
STAKEHOLDER(s)
Brand Marketing Team
SCOPE
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Multi-Campaign Photo & Video Production
The Brand
Bartesian makes cocktail machines for home bartenders who want a premium drink without the effort. The product sits at an interesting intersection: convenience and occasion, everyday and aspirational.
The creative challenge is doing both at once. You have to make the machine feel like something worth owning and make the moment around it feel genuinely lived-in, not staged for a catalog.
That tension is what made this a real creative problem across every campaign.
The Brief
The ask was simple to state and harder to execute:
reshoot the full extras and bundles catalog from scratch.
Over 100 individual items. Studio photography that felt polished and appetizing, but also cohesive enough to function as a visual system across a rotating weekly menu.
The goal wasn't just better photos.
It was imagery that could actually move a product.
Creative Direction
Every campaign started well before anyone arrived on set.
I handled quoting, contracts, location scouting via Peerspace, talent sourcing and casting, wardrobe direction, food styling coordination, and prop planning.
The creative brief called for upscale residential locations with kitchen and entertaining spaces that felt lived-in but still aspirational. Finding locations that could credibly hold both requirements, across multiple campaigns in different seasons, was its own creative and logistical challenge.
Shot lists were built to maximize coverage without losing intentionality. On a production this size, with this many deliverables, you can't improvise your way to 70 usable assets. Every setup needed a reason to be there.
Live on Set
I directed talent and crew across each campaign, managing real-time creative decisions while keeping the production on brief and on schedule.
The holiday campaign alone required 50 still assets across multiple machines, cocktails, and lifestyle setups, shot over two days with a full talent roster. The Bloody Mary brunch campaign added a 30-second video to the mix, with a six-person cast and a full lifestyle set built around the spring hosting occasion.


Managing a crew of this size across multiple campaign briefs means making constant judgment calls: when to push for another take, when to move on, when something is working on set but won't hold up in edit. That's the actual job of a creative director on a production like this, and it's what kept the work consistent across three very different seasonal moments.
The Final Product
Delivered 70-plus still assets and multiple video edits across three campaigns, in both portrait and landscape formats, for use across Bartesian's site, social, email, and paid media channels.
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Role: Art Director & Producer
Scope: Multi-Campaign Photo & Video Production
Brand: Bartesian, Chicago
​DP/Camera Operator: KOI Media
Brand Lead: Lucian Orsinger
Food Stylist: Justen Lambar
Photo Assistant: Gabe Taylor
Gaffer: Mike Hammond
Grip: Camila Cediel
1st AC: Kelsey Neumann
Production Assistant: Jasmine Gragg
HMUA: Kayla Jarzab
Models:
Penny Roman
Michael Hyatt
Alexandra Arrietaa
Katie Lebron
Eric Madarik
Let’s Work Together
Available for creative direction, brand work, and content projects.
Chicago and beyond
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