When a chance encounter leads to a good job, it sounds a lot like a Hollywood script.
But that is exactly what happened when 31-year-old Dan Sullivan started a conversation with the creative director of Cashman & Katz Integrated Communications while shopping at a Sears department store.
A short time after the improbable meeting, Sullivan sent in his resume, and later was hired as art director.
“I’ve always been interested in drawing,” Sullivan said. “And I have family members that are also graphic designers.”
After graduating from Central Connecticut State University in 2001 with a degree in graphic design, Sullivan decided to move to Boston. At the time, he didn’t have a job lined up. His first job brought him to Framingham-based Bose Corp., where he was art director for seven years.
While there, Sullivan handled print advertising and displays for Best Buy, Dunkin Donuts, New Balance and Cape Cod Potato Chips, among other retailers.
“I had one project to design every display for every store across the United States for Best Buy,” he said. “It was a lot of work but fun, too.”
Now Sullivan designs graphics for the Connecticut Lottery, Baskin Robbins, local hospitals and other Connecticut-based companies.
“The clients want ads that are colorful, fun and catchy,” he said.
He works with a mix of print and Web formats, converting ads to Flash files and animating static graphics for all Connecticut Lottery retailer locations.
“I always get the chance to be creative and to come up with ideas,” Sullivan said. “I love the whole process of launching new clients.”
“It’s not the huge corporate environment I was in at Bose,” he said. “And it’s more creatively stimulating to be here than in a cubicle.”
It comes as no surprise that among his hobbies of hiking and camping, Sullivan also draws and paints in his spare time.
“I’m just a creative person,” he said.
Emily Boisvert is a Hartford Business Journal staff writer.
