Online destination reflecting a positive offline experience.
Mechanica invited me to design and build a social site for their client NatevaFestival.com. Nateva is weekend music and camping festival set in Oxford Maine.

From the outset a level of credibility needed to be established from the moment you reached the homepage. There is an inherent balancing act with an event that strives to communicates coolness and fun while being professional and sophisticated.

Word about the festivals remarkable line-up was driven by radio and print. Once visitors had arrived at the website there were a number of tools to allow them to easily share their excitement in the months and weeks before. It was crucial that the navigation provide quick and easy access to resources for visitors planning their trip.

With help from ExUrban, off-the-shelf resources were utilized throughout the build. In addition to provided training through a screen-cast and online video tutorials.

In late 2009 Pearson Education launched a new system for testing non-native English speakers applying to universities. This is a relatively new segment for Pearson. It’s core audience of decision makers and influencers although familiar with the Pearson brand were less familiar with this new offering. For an audience that are innately researchers it made sense to gathering all the necessary documents, video and product demonstrations and provide one easy means to navigate. Utilizing a flash based dashboard the elements were assembled onto USB thumb drive.

The packaging doubled as a presentation case and self mailer. Although primarily distributed at events this in-depth promotion is also utilized by the sales team as leave-behind.

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Great Stories
This is an example of filling a budget hole with a lot of creativity. This storyboard sequence was targeted at storytellers to encourage participation in an upcoming contest. Using a myriad of scanned and photographed assets. In this sequence we get some insight to what a writer might go through as they develop a plot. The “camera” moves around a dining room table pausing at series of hand written notes, open books, photo albums and a cell phone as various messages and elements resolve to piece together a narrative.

Storyboards were delivered as layered Photoshop files at HD resolution, ready for assembly in After Effects.

Patterns
Life with a new-born can be a little disorientating. Your normal life patterns get turned around. Of the dozens of baby apps already in-market, most seemed cluttered and didn’t consider the context of the alarm. This created an opportunity for something a little different. I designed the icons to be distinctive and easily distinguished from several feet away. It’s easy to imagine fumbling for eyeglasses in the wee hours, so a lot of thought went into the typography and hierarchy of the message. Screens were designed to be manipulated with one hand. Above all it had to be fun, after all this baby stuff can be messy.

Over the course of a decade LendingTree has established itself as the defacto destination for online lending. Competition was eroding this position. LendingTree has tremendous brand equity. Part of the strategy was to use some of this equity in a new series of animated commercials. The leaf in effect becomes an enabler. A minimalist combination of color and fast paced animation allowed these distinctive spots to really stand out. Animation by Pascal Campion.

What does it mean to have a brand? where exactly is the intrinsic value?. Brands and their corresponding logosmarks are completely ubiquitous. A great logo should endure time and the rigors of media, from glowing out of tiny pixels to the blur of a passing vehicle, tradeshow booth or embriodered on apparel. Clean simple and succinct is key and in general fashions are to be avoided.

A logo is just one part of the equation. A brand is a voice and it should permeate every part of the organization. It’s a promise and a value set. Like a bespoke suit it will create an immediate impression. Many of the examples shown here evolved from long conversations with their respective custodians. These conversations regularly led to calls with their customers, vendors and people that have gotten to know their DNA from the outside in.

Seeing the impact and telling the story

Power+Systems provides unique workshops that help attendees to navigate the complexities of organizational structure. These workshops have a profound and lasting effect and are deeply rooted in psychology, human factors and anthropology.

The Challenge
Distinctly define Power+Systems complex offerings through web, video.

My Role

• Analysis and strategy
• Web design <<
• Video animation storyboards
• Video Producer
• Video Editing
• Filming
• Music

Enabling stronger connections

This project was one of the highlights of 2009. It’s representative of the many great collaborations with Ted Villa at ExUrban Inc.. The site is a custom WordPress design and build and was featured in the WordPress Showcase. The most gratifying part of this engagement is how engaged the faculty have become as they continue to explore new ways to push the technology. This approach dovetails nicely with the Schools progressive mindset. We really pushed the art direction to something that was a little unexpected, keeping it clean open and inviting. Ted has a full write-up on this extensive project on his blog.

Branded Storytelling

Moms are busy. Really busy and they don’t have time to listen to anyone outside of their circle. So how do you reach them in 30 seconds?. How do you engage them in a conversation that seems authentic?. Short answer is it’s really really difficult for marketers to engage this audience in a meaningful way. But Mom’s do listen to other Moms.

I was fortunate to part of a team that met these woman and told their stories. It was a remarkable experience to be able to witness their lives. For one day these women were treated like a movie stars.

There were many compelling stories that didn’t make it to TV and in support of the campaign we invited all Mom’s to share their stories online. We learned that Mom’s almost never make insightful videos. They’re too busy to even look for a camera much less upload a video, but website traffic always seemed to spike on rainy days after the spots aired.

My role was ACD. Championing ideas. Preparing and pitching concepts. Reassuring clients and talent. And providing the occasional nudge when it seemed like these amazing women were trying to be something other than themselves. I shot the behind-the-scenes footage and conducted interviews with one amazingly talented director. What did I learn?, that the hardest part was ensuring these stories have room to breathe.