From October 28, 2024 to September 1, 2025, Susie worked closely with one of the few living, master artists of our time, Derek Hess, to create his online content, stage his gallery for exhibitions, record and transcribe his thoughts into written passages, and regularly join him on-air as a guest DJ for his rock radio show he's hosted for over a decade on WCSB 89.3 FM Cleveland. Derek's life was featured in the documentary film, "Forced Perspective," and his art has been collected by The Louvre and The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum.
The objective, set forth by his management company Strhess LLC, was to activate his longstanding brand both in-person and online, while also helping to bring to life his upcoming 7th and largest book, The Revolutionary Concert Art of Derek Hess, due to release in 2025.
CONTENT CREATION:
Serving as an embedded creative director, Susie created online content and visionary proposals that supported Derek's ongoing partnerships with organizations like Live Nation, The Cleveland Museum of Natural History, and WCSB 89.3 FM Cleveland. The content Susie conceived, produced, and archived included hundreds of photographs, videos, and detailed audio recordings of Derek's insights and perspectives, as she followed him through his life for an entire year. Her expertise delivered a distinctive visual aesthetic, filming style, and brand voice for Derek's online presence, resulting in a 31% increase in top line revenue, 2.2K new organic followers, and multiple viral videos.
One of her concepts was to develop promotional reels that helped concert venues and touring rock bands as they were passing through Cleveland. In some cases, Derek stapled his current concert poster design on a few telephone poles around town, just like he used to in the 90s, when his career first took off as an illustrator and booking agent for The Euclid Tavern. She included visual clues in the footage about where the posters could be found, and fans were encouraged to #comeandgetit off the poles for free. Each time Susie produced content that promoted bands he liked (including Ghost, Pantera, Soul Coughing, The Jesus Lizard, Black Sabbath and more), Derek's social media accounts erupted with comments and shares and the "COME and GET IT" posters were gone within minutes.
Here's a link to the first "COME and GET IT" reel Susie created for Derek Hess on December 5, 2024 to promote The Jesus Lizard poster he had illustrated for their upcoming show at The Cleveland Agora. The reel garnered 25.5K views (1,355 likes) representing a 463% increase in the average views of Derek's previous two year's worth of videos.
Here's a link to the "RIP OZZY" reel Susie created for Derek Hess on July 22, 2025 in honor of the passing of his long time music hero. The reel garnered 419K views (16.5K likes) representing a 259% increase in views from the seven other reels Susie created that achieved five-digit views results.
EXHIBITION STAGING:
In order to prepare for Derek's first solo exhibition in six years, which took place on November 15, 2024, Susie used her interior design skills to transform Derek's warehouse gallery into a mood-filled and sophisticated show space for his work.
Leaning on her expertise in retail operations, Susie also led the integration of a point of sale checkout system for the Derek Hess Gallery, conducting transactions during the show and throughout the year, ensuring Derek and his team were free to connect with fans, clients and partners.
BOOK PRODUCTION:
With her expertise in custom publishing, Susie worked with Derek and his book design team to help bring a multi-year self-publishing effort to completion. Derek's 7th and largest book (280+ pages), The Revolutionary Concert Art of Derek Hess, is expected to release in the fall of 2025. In it, fans will find over 300 images of his hand illustrated concert posters and black & white fliers created for many musical and visual arts shows in America and overseas. Over the months of sorting and archiving all the fliers, Susie found several that had been accidentally overlooked, so they were later added. Over many months, Susie interviewed Derek about specific concert posters he created, then transcribed and edited those recordings into Derek's written stories that have been included throughout the book.
COLLEGE RADIO GUEST DJ:
In order to better understand Derek's personal taste and public persona, Susie joined Derek on air as a guest DJ several times, while he hosted his Friday Night Rock Rotation radio show on WCSB 89.3 FM in Cleveland before the 50-year old student run station was shut down by Cleveland State University on October 3, 2025.
With Susie's experience as a radio DJ for Cleveland's OWOW Internet Radio Station and an on-air personality for many TV, radio, and podcast programs, Susie added flavor to Derek's show through their engaging conversations during the breaks between the music. Derek also made space in his show for Susie to deliver her own "Susie Set" of hard rock, punk, and alternative songs that she pulled specifically for each month.
To learn more about Derek Hess, go to derekhess.com