Chris Handley Bio

For over two decades, Chris Handley has produced advertising and design for agencies and corporations throughout the US.

Handley knew he wanted to be a designer after a very fun and successful semester in a creative-problem-solving class he took during his college years. Suddenly he was very interested in things like the design of salad dressing bottles and cereal boxes.

He began his career in St. Louis in 1989, as a graphic designer for The Composing Room, a traditional typography house, where he mastered typography and desktop publishing skills while serving the service bureau’s clients, some of the top advertising and design firms in the city. While there, he helped launch a new design department, Barking Dog Design, as the new venture’s package designer.

His reputation for creating good design and being easy-to-work-with made him a sought-after resource. Handley began taking on freelance projects—around his responsibilities with The Composing Room—to serve top ad agencies and design firms in St. Louis, including Zipatoni, Checkmark Communications and Busch Creative.

Taking an opportunity to expand his skills further, Handley joined marketing research firm, JCCampbell and Associates, where he learned more about targeting particular demographics and what grabs people’s attention in the context of package design.

After his career kick-start in St. Louis, the blue waters of Hawaii called. Handley became art director for Honolulu’s largest advertising agency, Starr Seigle McCombs. There he developed collateral advertising campaigns for SSM’s largest billing client, the Bank of Hawaii. Seeing the success of Handley’s team approach to the creative process, SSM restructured their agency to institutionalize his methods.

He gained local recognition in Honolulu as an innovative thinker through his creative direction as communications committee chair for Ad 2 Honolulu and freelance art director for Ogilvy & Mather.

He also learned how to surf, windsurf and scuba dive—and traveled to Beijing, Hong Kong and Japan. Among his favorite memories of living on the Pacific Rim, he witnessed a “green flash” sunset while sipping Mai-Tais on the north shore of Oahu.

A move to Atlanta led to the opportunity to become an entrepreneur. Handley founded Chris Handley Graphic Design in 1995. He was able to generate immediate cash flow by providing clients the full spectrum of design skills required to create unique artwork from concept to completion. His freelance agency experience includes West Wayne, Bockel & Company, and Bigelow & Eigle. Corporate clients include US Motivation, BellSouth, Coca-Cola, nFront, Digital Insight, Netzee, S1 Corporation, Home Box Office, Hotel Ventures International, Universal Flavor, and Ralston Purina.

In 2006, PR firm Cohn Overstreet & Parrish offered Handley the opportunity to come “in-house” to expand the firm’s marketing services to offer design. Serving CO&P’s clients allowed him to learn more about incorporating PR into marketing and expanding the reach of a brand across a continually increasing variety of communication channels. In his role as creative director with the firm, Handley helped to brainstorm creative marketing approaches to clients’ business challenges and worked with Chick-fil-A, CoreNet Global, InsureTrust, Macy’s, and the Council for Quality Growth.

Today, Handley is creative director for Snowball Creative Group, a company he started in 2009 to bring more specialized design services to his own clients. Working with a team of independent and experienced web developers, photographers, writers, illustrators and consultants, he offers a range of high quality services appropriate to each project at competitive rates.

Recognized as an industry leader, Handley has chaired positions with the Management Outreach Committee for AIGA Atlanta, team captain for PowerCore, and Communications Committee for Ad 2 Atlanta. He’s earned both local and national awards for these voluntary efforts and creative awards for his art direction of TV and print collateral designs, as well as the honor of appreciation for his efforts as a design competition judge.

Handley enjoys applying his creative approach to a variety of activities, including photography, cooking, playing guitar, figure drawing and gardening. His landscape design talent was featured on the Decatur Garden Tour in 2001, and he’s won numerous awards for his photography.

A Golden Key National Honor Society graduate of Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, Handley earned a bachelor’s degree in Visual Communication–Design.