NCARB Annual Business Meeting 2015–2017
Senior Visual Designer / NCARB

Every June, NCARB hosts its annual business meeting in a select city of the United States. Throughout the three-day conference, delegates discuss recent changes to NCARB programs, set the tone for NCARB’s upcoming initiatives, and elect new officers. I had the privilege of being the lead designer for this event three years in a row.

Each year’s meeting is designated a theme by executive leadership, in which my colleagues and I would do extensive research and creative development to come up with the event graphics and visuals. The challenge was to create a visual identity that is unique yet follows the NCARB brand standards. Each theme, matched with the meeting location gave me a full and vast landscape for creative expression. The visuals are implemented across essential communications and collateral to ensure a cohesive experience for our members as well as elevate the NCARB brand to a convention-style event.

Themes:

2015 New Orleans—Regeneration 

2016 Seattle—Building Community

2017 Boston—Reflection

Data Visualization / Infographic Design
Senior Visual Designer / NCARB

NCARB by the Numbers (NBTN) is NCARB's annual data publication. After a brand refresh effort in 2014, it was time to re-vision how we were telling the story of NCARB through data. The challenge was to create a publication that will educate the general public and architects alike about the state of architectural licensure in the U.S. In years past, NBTN was a bland data publication with uninteresting content, and graphs that were too hard to understand. My team felt it was important to design a publication that was jam-packed with analytical insights, yet was simple to read. A cross-departmental project team was tasked with mining the data, pulling out key metrics and trends, and reorganizing and simplifying the information. The content team then created a new content structure to break down all that data into eloquent, bite-size snippets.

In collaboration with the Marketing & Communications team, I focused on telling the story through visuals. Each chapter opens with a brightly colored, energetic, and educational infographic to string together crucial insights. It was a fun challenge to work within the evolving brand guidelines and develop a fresh look for the infographics. Inside the chapters are more detailed graphs that show data trends over the years. I designed graph templates to make it easier to reproduce the charts each year.

NBTN has been paramount to raising awareness about the crucial role NCARB plays in the world of architecture and has earned positive sentiment among readers.

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Environmental Design / Brand Awareness
Senior Visual Designer / NCARB

NCARB joins thousands of architects and licensure candidates who gather in the AIA National Convention in a different city each year. Our booth is busy all three days, providing attendees with insight into our programs and services. With the 2016 theme of “Building Community,” the booth had to be an inviting space for those in our community to come and explore the many resources, we took to the convention. It was essential to design a booth that allowed traffic to flow freely, and also hold space for small group discussion.

We created an interactive “community” wall to engage architects and candidates—a space where they could post photos and write what is important to them about the architect community. Along with designing the booth wall graphics, I created many branded collateral pieces including postcards that explain important program details, t-shirts for giveaways and staff to wear, and a looping slideshow to highlight the imported topics of discussion at the booth.

Microsite Design
Visual Designer | NCARB

Each year, NCARB publishes its annual report on the web, with an overview of all business accomplishments throughout the year. The challenge is to build a narrative through content and visuals to tell its story to three distinctly different audiences—architects, member board members, and the general public. In years past, the report consists of long reports and articles that barely earned any readership. It was just too much material to keep anyone engaged. 2015 was the first year that my team reorganized the content of the report to do just that. We felt to grasp the reader and pull them through the narrative; it was best to give bite-size portions of content while keeping it visually exciting.

In collaboration with the NCARB content team, I developed the digital style, created imagery, infographics, and iconography to help tell the story. For easy implementation and a lack of development resources, I designed layout and UI elements and created the web template in Adobe Muse.

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Hand Lettering
Senior BFA Candidate | Corcoran

As a senior BFA student at Corcoran College of Art + Design, I focused a whole year studying hand lettering and its function in design. I was fascinated by the work of Mike Perry and others who use illustration to create lettering and design. This poster and book are the culmination of the many hours spent examining, admiring and replicating the works of great designers and artists past and present. The poster is a commentary on what goes into the creative process—illustrations of words to describe how we think, what we do, and what we feel as creatives. The book is my senior theses written and designed to explain my belief that adding a human touch to a design will better connect and resonate with its viewers. Creating these pieces was a true labor of love and a fascinating exploration of inserting a human element into my work.

Mobile App Design
Digital Designer | PBJ Marketing

WeParty is a political app concept which helps you stay informed of what's happening on a congressional level—a place to get to know the elected officials that represent you. As the younger demographic becomes more engaged in the political discussion, we wanted to create an app that caters to their needs. The challenge was to design a pure brand experience that would keep youth audience engaged over time, serving relevant content to each user based on location and party affiliation.

While keeping the brand playful, we wanted to create a user experience that felt comfortable and reliable. The name "WeParty" is a play on words, connecting the idea of political parties with an appeal to a younger audience. The elephant and the donkey are traditional party symbols illustrated in a contemporary way. The color palette, a play on the American motif, is bold and fresh. The use of imagery is subtle yet distinguished, executing headshots in a similar style, ensuring visual consistency. Iconography creates visual cues to help the user navigate quickly and with ease.

Logo Design
Digital Designer | UPD

The U.S. Water Partnership unites and mobilizes U.S. based expertise, resources and ingenuity to address water challenges around the globe. It was an initiative spearheaded by the U.S. Department of State, under the direction of former Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton. I had the privilege of designing a logo for the initiative as it started to build out its brand presence. The design requirements were to consider development of a graphic rather than a photo. The mark was to be abstract yet professional, featuring American iconography. They wanted the logo to be simple and bold, yet highly recognizable as a United States initiative.

More about U.S. Water Partnership

Experiential Website Design
Digital Designer | UPD

When philanthropists Steve and Jean Case decided to open a vineyard, they needed an experiential website—one that was a clear reflection of its place in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The challenge was to showcase on screen the beauty of the rolling hills and textures of the vineyard. As the website would be most customers' first experience of the vineyard, it had to be warm and inviting, express the values of the business, and entice the viewer to want to visit. I chose a wide range of visual elements to design with, wood and slate textures, curly flourishes of the vine, deep warm tones of the soil. In a combination of photography and digital image making, the elements come together to tell a visual story of the place.

Digital Magazine
Digital Designer | UPD

Beverly Hill Lifestyle is luxury lifestyle guide distributed worldwide. UPD was challenged to present how this world renowned publication could be represented in the digital space. The team worked vigorously over a long weekend to create what was literally a jaw dropping production. Here are a few clips of that presentation.

Mobile App and Microsite Design
Digital Designer | UPD

BrandFanatique is a social media platform that allows users to share, comment, and rate their favorite brands and get credit for it. I helped create the graphic style and design the user interface.

Mobile App and Website Design
Digital Designer | UPD

Orbium is a daily horoscope and astrology app that uses science to create a unique horoscope and astrology map based on user-specific birth information (date, time, and geographical placement). The challenge was to design it in such away that it could appeal to both men and women and represent the science rather than focus on the typical horoscope.

Mobile App Design
Digital Designer | PBJ Marketing

Okasio (latin stem of occāsiō) meaning "Occasion," is designed to find the best matches for its users during any occasion. I created the GUI elements and UI design.

Design for Motion
Digital Designer | UPD

Resonate collects big data and takes consumer insights out of the database and into the marketplace. Here is a quick animation we created to explain the service. I designed the visuals to be animated.

Musical Theater Booklet
Graphic Artist | The Kennedy Center

Little Dancer was a Kennedy Center Original. I designed the booklet for the show debut. A blend of turn of the century imagery with a touch of whimsical flare.

Tour Booklet Design
Graphic Artist | The Kennedy Center

I designed the booklet as an advertisement for the tour which ran at the Kennedy Center briefly. The show producers liked the booklet so much, they picked it up to use as a marketing piece for the remainder of the tour.

Printed Brochure and Signage
Junior Designer | Corcoran Gallery

Artini is an annual fundraiser hosted by the Corcoran’s young professional members group, the 1869 Society. I worked directly with the 1869 Society's advisory board on a design scheme for this special event that entails a night of art-inspired cocktails. The challenge was to present a fresh take on the wordmark, graphics, styles and colors that had already been established for the Artini brand in years prior – a brand that represents the event as formal and chic to a young, contemporary audience.

Microsite and Print Design
Junior Designer | Corcoran Gallery

30 Americans, a Rubell Family Collection, is a wide range survey of work by many of the most important and influential African American artists of the last three decades. The Corcoran held the touring exhibition as its third stop in the fall of 2010. The Office of Design created a visual identity that was accessible and lived within the institutional style of the Corcoran. We created all printed and web collateral including flyers, brochures, signage, web design, ads and environmental graphics. This was my first opportunity to work on the entire exhibition design process with the museum.

Design Lab Manager
Senior BFA Candidate | Corcoran

NEXT is the Corcoran College of Art and Design's annual senior thesis exhibition series. Each year the series gets a fresh identity and design which is informed by the theme of the show. I was fortunate to oversee the college's Design Lab in creating the identity for the second NEXT exhibition and implementation of designs in print and web collateral.

Stop-Motion Animation
Design Intern | Clements Worldwide

Clements Worldwide (originally Clements International) holds an annual expat youth scholarship competition that asks youth around the world to tell their story through art and an essay. I was selected two years in a row to create the microsite which was the home for the winning and nominated entries. Along with the microsite, I created an animation piece to introduce the scholarship program. This the most recent of the two animations which was created using scans of construction paper and Flash animation.

Banner Design Competition
Senior BFA Candidate | Corcoran

In spring of 2010, the Urban Forest Project teamed up with AIGA DC for its first banner competition in the DC metro area. The initiative gave me a great opportunity to express how I feel about the environment and to place my design, my "signature" so-to-speak, in this city's history. I wanted my banner to represent how important trees are to the existence of us humans and the important roll we play in the conservation of this planet. My design was one of 100 that were chosen to be hung throughout the city.

Handlettering
Senior BFA Candidate | Corcoran

Off The Walls is an annual student art sale for the holiday season at the Corcoran. The brand had already been established so the challenge was to do a brand refresh. I drew it by hand to give it a human quality and to reflect the concept of the student-made artwork. Along with the wordmark I created supporting hand-drawn ornaments and graphics. The poster and signage were used as marketing materials and way-finding during the sale.

Stop-Motion Animation
Junior BFA Candidate | Corcoran

Experimental type-in-motion. Each letter is an individual digital print, pinned to a board, photographed and animated.

Microsite Design and Digital Campaign
Digital Designer | UPD

Accelerate Brain Cancer Cure, created by Steve and Jean Case, is a local non-profit that raises awareness and funds research to find a cure for brain tumors. The 2012 year-end campaign, "This Is Personal" was a web and social media campaign which spread awareness and enticed viewers to donate to the cause.

Expressive Image & Type Calendar
Created with Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign

An exploration of image making, pattern, typography and color to feature the edgy and gritty qualities of alternative drag queen culture.