David Jonsson
I'm a design professional with over fourteen years experience. I started out my design career in a London based fashion-focused e-commerce agency, BORN (formerly Pod1) After a family health scare I returned to Australia at the end of 2005.
I based myself in Brisbane and pursued my freelance design career focusing on small to medium business branding and website design.
After three years in Brisbane, I had the opportunity to work for Byron Bay based clothing brand AFENDS. Jumping at the opportunity I quickly progressed from their Junior Designer to the Creative Director. In the three fulfilling years that I worked with AFENDS, the brand continued to evolve and develop, becoming internationally recognised with the likes of Urban Outfitters, ASOS and Karmaloop stocking the brand.
In 2012, AFENDS was approached by the founders of EPOKHE to take care of their back-end needs so, along with my AFENDS duties, I was now doing the production and eyewear design for the start-up brand. At the end of 2013 after directing and designing twelve seasons for AFENDS and two collections for EPOKHE my body and mind were ready for a new challenge.
In 2014 I had the opportunity to revive the apparel aspect of California based brand Von Zipper. Under the Billabong Group umbrella, I headed up the men's and women's apparel, bringing the brand back to life with a huge increase in wholesale orders. The daily travel of two hours was becoming a bit much and in 2016 I had the opportunity to join Sidelife Distribution heading up their marketing for their in-house brands, Mr Simple and Simple Watch Co whilst working on the wholesale marketing for the main distribution brand, Herschel Supply Co.
In 2017 Afends went through some big internal changes and approached me to return back to the business and head up their design and creative team. Having always loved a challenge, I returned to Afends and worked with the team on re-building the men's and women's brand. At my time at Afends, we had solid increase in sell-through with all our major accounts and the vertical side of the business went from strength to strength. In my time back at Afends, I believe we created the best collections I’ve had the opportunity to work on in my career. All the way from the fits, the fabrication and the artist program. A credit to everyone else in the team who made all this happen.
At the end of March, 2020 my time as Creative Director at Afends came to an end. With the uncertainties of COVID-19 running rampant through the retail industry and causing a lot of uncertainty for everyone. The role ended on a mutual understanding and on very good terms.
The next six months of isolation through the COVID-19 crisis will be spent in a positive manner, a time to focus on a few personal projects that will come to life in the coming weeks and months. I’m available and always interested to hear about any idea you might have and how you could see us working together.
My skills range from creative direction, graphic design, apparel design, eyewear design all the way to online marketing strategies and brand consulting. To have a more in-depth look at my previous experience, head over to my LinkedIn profile.