Unfortunately, as a consequence of migrating my portfolio, I've lost a lot of the case studies and writeups I had. This page is in progress and will eventually be sorted out to show a complete archive of these old projects.
Below is all the case study info I had backed up:
Below is all the case study info I had backed up:
Nurnberg brand identity
Nurnberg is a laboratory supply company that was opening a new web portal to accept orders, an improvement on their phone-and-fax method. This is an image of a brand kit made from a system I developed for the launch of the web store, and features a robot mascot that was worked into ad copy as "your personal picker", a scientific marvel that would receive your order and collect it for you from the warehouse. For a company that was founded in 1946, this was a huge leap not only in tech but in branding and marketing, an issue they hadn't ever considered previously. The campaign was short but successful; the logo that came as part of the brand redesign is still in use, and I think some of the special business cards from that campaign are still in circulation.
While I can't say I’m pleased with how the company has implemented the brand system and guidelines, change is hard, and I think the more important outcome of the project was a shift in how Nurnberg thinks about their brand in a new century.
Garrison Hullinger ad campaign
Garrison Hullinger is a noted Interior Designer who felt that his brand had grown stale. He was working with a developer to redesign his website, but he was struggling to find vision for it. His primary marketing medium had always been print, and he came to me looking for new concepts for a campaign that might inject some new life into how he's perceived, without losing the brand equity he had built over two decades.
Our project was to develop a campaign that would achieve his marketing goals, but also would be strategically deployed across various publications so as to test his market for the most successful concepts. Once his feedback was in, he'd use the winning ideas to drive his web redesign. It's an interesting way to essentially rebrand, but, as an analytical person, it was a strategy that would give him hard data to base his decisions on without breaking the bank on market research and a full studio treatment.
We spent a longer than average amount of time in the exploratory phase, where I would craft an advertisement or promotional mockup and he would volley back with feedback. Eventually, we came to a guiding concept we both liked: actual photos from past projects, but dressed up as architectural plans with notes and measurements. This is a "behind the scenes" effect, lending some agency to the potential buyer by giving them a sense of involvement in the design process. The campaign formed around this idea, that Garrison Hullinger builds your vision collaboratively, not dictatorially.
From this concept, we developed 5 variants and deployed them. The image in my portfolio is the winner, which was a 50/50 view of a room complete, and, opposite, purely schematic. It also shows a 1/8 page tower ad, where I made much more daring use of his brand colors and features a redrawn version of his logo.
Sesco Enterprises Intranet Design
SESCO Enterprises is a large organization that deals in complex analysis and large-figure deals across the United States. They were amidst a push for digital transformation, and wanted a central intranet to act as a hub for their many stakeholders and contractors. Central to the project was simple maintenance, intuitive navigation, and systems integration with HR and Sales. SESCO leadership was not happy with their in-house developers' handling of the project, so I was tasked with leading the concept and design (pre-development) phase.
After gaining the project insight and limitations information from the project director and developers, I created a few different high-level concepts. The strongest was the one in this layout.
I chose an isometric projection of the 2D page design to more easily convey the architecture of the Home page in broad terms without getting into the weeds of what, specifically, it would be populated with. I also chose, at this phase, to present it in greyscale so that we could better discuss function before distractions like color, font, and image selection would come into focus.
I want to highlight this piece because it's a potent example of how design can be a business solution. This method of design made it easier for key SESCO decision-makers, who were not extremely tech-savvy, to understand and take action on the project without excessive iteration, confusion, or delay. As a result, a finished product was launched efficiently and successfully, which the developers insisted was a rarity.
Premier CIO Forum Promotional Ad/Infographic
This design is for the Premier Connects series of events held nationally for CIO executives. It was developed in an infographic style in a 1/2 page vertical print format so that it could be used as an advertisement, a web feature, or broken into 1/3 sections to be used in a PowerPoint deck. It features:
- Custom flat illustrations created by me
- Sales copy that I took the initiative of collecting in a boilerplate document in case of crunch time
- A new spin on the brand's color palette deployment, particularly the full-bleed color sections and the broader use of yellow
It tells a story of a professional in therapy, complaining about his lack of engagement on LinkedIn. His therapist recommends Premier CIO Forum. At work, he's under a lot of stress, but doesn't have the solutions to his problems. Finally, we see him in bliss because he's combined good networking with quality solutions, the brand promise of Premier CIO Forum.
The concept was vague, executing it was a challenge, and there was not a lot of extra time to develop it with feedback. I was trusted to create something that could be iterated on, that would be eye-catching, and might enable more productive communications for sales.