Caley Adams

FOUNDER/CREATIVE DIRECTOR
WILDES DISTRICT
NEW YORK NY

Caley Adams is the Founder & Creative Director of Wildes District, an NYCbased design studio that specializes in emerging women’s and e-commerce brands. Wildes District works closely with founders to build meaningful experiences that span multiple touchpoints — including brand, web, app, print, packaging, and more.

Caley has over a decade of design experience working for some of the world’s most celebrated brands, including Chanel, The Row, Rolex, Warby Parker, Birchbox, Ralph Lauren, and Barkbox. After spending years building larger brands, she turned her focus towards working with early-stage companies to help them navigate the many phases and challenges of brand development, from pre-launch to post-launch life and created Wildes District in 2018.

Today, she leads the Wildes District team and partners with founders to help build brands from the ground up, with visually compelling but scalable design. Their clients include some of the most “of-the-moment” names today including Andie Swim, Aurate, Chief, Clare Paint, Coterie, Elix Healing, Kin Euphorics, and Margaux.

 

Looking forward, are you optimistic about the role of graphic design in business and society?

In today’s brand-saturated world, there are endless brands in any given market. Design has become a great way to distinguish one from the other — particularly within website design, where we are communicating the ethos of a brand to the consumer. This is powerful information for consumers to consider when deciding which brands to support, and it allows them to make purchases that align with their beliefs.

 

Have the challenges of the past two years changed the way you approach your work?

With the pandemic moving everything to remote work, we’ve had to find new ways to connect with our clients and colleagues. Pre-pandemic, we had a lot of time to build relationships during in-person meetings and regular office downtime, which doesn’t happen anymore. So we’ve had to build in time to our meetings for organic discussions and relationship building. It can make the meetings longer, but the outcome is always better and feels much less transactional.