Carlos Herrera

Design director & creative leader

  • PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY

    Design leader with 20+ years shaping branded hospitality and retail environments at scale. Deep experience across luxury hospitality, lifestyle and boutique hotels, and global retail and food-service brands. Led the design studio at Curioso for seven years, owning concept-through-delivery for projects across the U.S. and Mexico. Five years inside Starbucks shaping store concepts and multi-format prototypes that informed global rollout. Currently running an independent design practice in Chicago. Bilingual EN/ES • LEED® AP.

    SELECTED CLIENTS & BRANDS

    Luxury Hospitality: Six Senses, Atelier de Hoteles Lifestyle / Boutique: Aparium Hotel Group, Toast Hotel Group Global Hospitality & Retail Brands: Starbucks, Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott, Iberostar Development / Mixed-Use: Core Spaces Retail: Seven Point

    EXPERIENCE

    Independent Design Director, Hospitality & Retail — Casa Herrera Atelier

    2026 – Present • Concept design, creative direction, and design advisory for hospitality and retail brands and design-build partners — bringing studio-level creative leadership to projects on an engagement basis.

    Studio Design Leader — Curioso

    2019 – 2026

    • Built and led the design studio — hiring, mentorship, creative direction, and the design quality bar across hospitality and retail projects in the U.S. and Mexico.

    • Drove concept-through-delivery for boutique hotel programs (Aparium, Toast Hotel Group), flagship retail, and mixed-use environments — including custom furniture, lighting, and FF&E.

    • Partnered directly with owners, operators, and brand teams to translate brand strategy into space that performed under construction, budget, and operator realities.

    • Set studio-wide standards for design documentation, presentation craft, and cross-functional client communication.

    Senior Store Concepts Designer — Starbucks

    2017 – 2019

    • Developed next-generation store concepts for one of the world's most recognized brand-experience companies, with direct influence on designs rolled out across thousands of stores globally.

    • Translated customer research, brand strategy, and operational requirements into prototype designs across multiple store formats — cafés, drive-thru, Reserve, and kiosk programs.

    • Worked cross-functionally with brand, operations, real estate, and store-development teams to align design with business performance and brand consistency at multi-site scale.

    • Tested concepts at single-store level and refined them for system-wide rollout.

    Senior Designer — Curioso

    2016 – 2017 • Led project teams through concept and design development for hospitality interiors, focused on custom furniture, casegoods, and lighting that gave each property its distinct identity.

    Store Designer — Starbucks

    2014 – 2016 • Managed retail design projects from concept through installation, coordinating with architects, GCs, and storedevelopment partners to deliver on brand, on budget, and on schedule.

    Earlier Career — Gettys Group, Studio K Creative, Cannon Frank, Wallin/Gomez

    • Foundation across hotel interiors, branded environments, FF&E specification, custom millwork, and design delivery — alongside an independent perspective-rendering practice for hospitality and retail clients running continuously since 2002.

    EDUCATION, CREDENTIALS & SKILLS BFA, Interior Design — International Academy of Design and Technology • LEED® AP • Spanish (Full Professional Proficiency) AutoCAD • SketchUp • Enscape • Adobe InDesign • Photoshop • Asana • Bluebeam Revu