Tag: creative direction

WealthEngine identity exploration

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saynuk

WealthEngine wanted to inject new energy into their brand, and build out some infographics that clarify and simplify their value proposition. Working with the Art Director, I explored documents, conference display materials, infographics, and more. I worked with the client to establish the standards in guidance documents, so they could continue to build their materials using the in-house team.

Activu

saynuk

Entering an exciting, new phase of product and industry leadership, Activu was eager to promote a new software release on their website. We developed new, succinct, energetic messaging, and completely rebuilt the focus of the company branding to focus on Activu’s core competencies and trustworthy record of solving big problems for their clients.

Messaging was streamlined, placing customer stories at the forefront of the discussion, highlighting benefits Activu delivers through their solutions. Product messaging was overhauled to enhance readability and market differentiation in Activu’s solution compared to the industry.

Predata

saynuk

Predata asked for a brand refresh, starting with the website. I changed the brand accent color to a bright aqua, and settled on a palette of mostly slates and midnights, with a few secondary colors as needed. A tremendous amount of forethought and WordPress customization effort has been expended to make the site very easily administrable for non-developers from the WP admin area, without using clunky WYSIWYG admin overlay plugins. The result is a very functionally complex site, fully custom CSS, numerous automated features, and a very friendly dynamically-populated Bootstrap-based carousel on the homepage. See the site here: predata.com

Purposeful Design Workshop

saynuk

Teaching 7-8th grade children about design through a hands-on, workshop-style class. In one of our self-generated projects, we reimagined Hoboken’s dreadfully confusing parking signs as more friendly and legible communication devices.

We began by choosing to project mainly positive messages for people looking to park their cars. The class acknowledged how challenging it is for their parents and visitors to drive safely down Hoboken’s narrow streets—watching for pedestrians, cars pulling out, doors opening into the lane. We determined that an icon-based approach was necessary to help parkers in their first stage: “can I park here or not?” We changed the sign’s shape to improve non-legible communication using universal icons: the well-known public parking “P” in a blue circle, and a “house” shape.

Even a non-resident would notice and understand the parking “P” and feel confidence approaching that side of the street for a parking spot. Placing the word “visitors” directly below the “P” reinforces for non-residents that they may look for those signs to park. Conversely, the house-shaped sign uses the word “resident” at the very top, which, combined with the the shape of the sign communicates to visitors that these are not visitor parking spots. All this new information is easily conveyed to a driver, quickly and safely, without squinting or taking their eyes off the road for much more than an instant.

Once drivers understand this information, the signs clearly convey to visitors that they are only welcome to 4 hours of parking, and permit holders are welcome as long as they like. We then used a bright, contrasting color to separate the street cleaning times and dates, and designed them as a viewer perhaps envisions the days of a week in their mind’s eye: a seven-unit row. While the sweeping days are abbreviated within this series of cells, they also indicate the restricted days based on which cells are colored and labeled, again increasing legibility for a driver who might not catch all the words or letters while moving.