Portrait of a woman with shoulder-length brown hair, blue eyes, smiling, wearing a black sleeveless top, standing against a beige textured wall.

Hi. You found me.

Katie Young | Freelance & Fractional Creative Director & Copywriter | New York City

I'm Katie Young, a freelance and fractional creative director and copywriter who's spent two decades in CPG, beauty, and health & wellness. (It’s a surprisingly short leap from body lotion to blood coagulation.) My right and left brain have a healthy working relationship and an intellectual curiosity that drives me to dig deep into every project. I've been called strategic, conceptual, easygoing, and once, "the velvet sledgehammer." You'll see that tension of grit and finesse in the work.

I plug in fast and don't need much hand-holding, equal parts brand builder and punchline polisher. I can scale up to lead a full launch and scale back to keep a brand humming. I’m here to help.

Where I specialize

  • Beauty & personal care: Skincare, haircare, prestige and mass: Jergens, Bioré, Curél, Clinique, Origins, John Frieda, Revlon, plus derm-led skincare with Rodan + Fields

  • Health & wellness: Idea generation and copy that's substantiated, claims-aware, compliant, and still sounds human.
    – Women's health, menopause & feminine care: Kindra, Lola clean feminine care
    – Regulated pharma & healthcare DTC: Amgen, Pfizer, Tryngolza, Alcon
    – Hospitals: NYU Langone, Edward Hospital, Swedish Covenant
    – MedTech: Werfen, HuFriedyGroup

  • Translating clinical and technical product detail into copy people actually want to read

Beyond the core

Confections, fast food, auto and household CPG. Hershey's, McDonald's, PF Chang’s, Toyota, Crest, Tide, Pillsbury. Equally at home on a full-scale blue-chip brand as I am on a focused beauty launch.

What I do

  • Integrated campaign development across social, digital, TV, packaging, in-store, OOH, websites, and experiential

  • Influencer campaign direction, including creator briefs and brand-voice guidelines

  • Concept development, core concept generation, and creative direction from first brainstorm to final cut

  • Copywriting across brand, campaign, social, UX and SEO

  • Platform-aware social creative across emerging formats

  • Brand storytelling rooted in insight and human truth

  • Production leadership, from big-budget celebrity shoots to scrappy one-offs

  • AI-integrated creative workflows and emerging tools


Recognition

The One Show, Communication Arts, The Drum, The Glossy Awards