Branding, strategy, information architecture, design and web style guide for all Nielsen client-facing portals. The mission was to take Nielsen, the Hollywood ratings giant, from slow, awkward and out-of-date technology into clean, platform-agnostic, design and technology space. As one designer friend noted, the complexity of the information on this site makes Google Analytics look like Info 101. Almost any piece of data can be found for almost any title and spot, for any demographic, and all of this information can be compared to other titles on the fly. This design formed the basis for a web style guide that will inform all the other sites as they migrate to the new technology platform.

“350 Years in America” film created for the National Museum of American Jewish History. Easily my favorite project of 2010, if also the most grueling. I was given a short script, a placeholder soundtrack, hundreds of historical images and  a little over a month to create one of the primary film experience exhibits for the new museum. The 3 minute film sets the tone for the emotional journey the museum goer is about to experience, taking users through American Jewish history from colonial day to the present in breathtaking scale. The film is projected on a 40 foot wide screen using 5 overlapping HD projectors. For the tech geeks, the film was built entirely in 3D, and required approximately 360 hours to render on 8 and 12 core workstations. The film was created with David Grubin Productions and WooArt, who were also responsible for much of the media throughout the museum.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The last (maybe) of the stop motion experiments created with photographer Chris Korbey on a recent shoot in Dallas. This one started by trying to create spray from a toy gun with shaving cream. We liked the shaving cream pile and the shape it was making, so we kept going with it. Duck soup became the obvious go to.

Clean version:

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One with a graphic in the key, just for kicks.

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DUCKS_graphic

Finished up a shoot EARLY in Dallas last week with photographer Chris Korbey and decided to kill the time with some stop motion experiments. The goal with this one was simply to improve upon the hideous (but strangely compelling) mortgage banner ads that frequently junk up my screen. Click thru to see how it looked in motion.

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Best practices study. Site design. Information architecture. Image library. Created for Milliman, a global actuarial and management consulting firm. The project was to build a web version in place of Milliman’s much-loved,  premiere print publication. Tall order. I included a best practices phase in the project to make certain the client was aware of current thought leadership practices, and to make sure we all had a good sense of how important thought leadership has become as a primary source of brand building and extension.

Among many other findings, the most important conclusion was that the company-wide publication strategy needed to shift. All objective publications should be part of “Insight,” and all marketing materials should be treated as such. No more blurry line between marketing and thought leadership. In order to do this, I had to create an information architecture not only for the thought leadership areas of the site, but for all areas of the site that included publications.

“Network” package + 8 individual show package designs. Environmental graphics. Motion billboards. Onsite creative direction and design.

Just got back from Frankfurt after 8 grueling days (after 2+ months of production) working on this show. Working for WooArt and RedThread Productions, I created 9 individual (but related) identities, environmental media and graphics for SapphireNOW, a live, 3-day event broadcast simultaneously from Frankfurt and Orlando. The event was built around the concept of a live channel, with 8 recurring shows which featured live interviews and original programming for each of the three days the shows were on-air. Notable speakers and talent for the broadcast included Al Gore, Richard Branson and for all you closet Simon LeBon fans, Duran Duran played what was apparently a pretty rockin’ show for the Frankfurt attendees (I stayed in the bar).

The show was a huge success, in no small part due to the incredible talent assembled by Wooart, RedThread, and the event company, i4D.

Delivery for the show was an incredible logistical challenge, as the several hundred elements (all originating in a 3D environment) that made up the show all had to be built for 3 different playback systems. The environmental signage and billboards were Watchout, which is essentially a side-by-side HD signal, so the media coming through had to be rendered 3600 pixels by 1080 pixels — no small feat for footage coming out of a 3D environment.

2 minute info graphics story video built entirely in 3D. Created for SF-based ad agency School of Thought, this was a fun, quick-turnaround 3D story-tellilng exercise. I hate to show my hand (and geek out at the same time), but this animation would have taken a month without MoGraph. As it is, it’s pretty tricky to get the narrative to line up around a set of cloned objects.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Cover design and illustration. The Print Magazine October 2008 cover, highlighting an article about the rise of faux news graphics. The story details “The Colbert Report,” “The Daily Show” and “ONN” (The Onion News Network).

The challenge with this design was how to communicate over-designed, hyperbolic news graphics (as a joke) without cheapening the cover of such a beautiful magazine. I was most proud that they used my headline (“Breaking the News”) for the cover.
October 2008 cover
“Not Necessarily the News” (article)

SD & HD motion toolkit of animated and still elements. Wrote 50+ page style guide. Created for Sequel Studios and their client CA, the motion graphics toolkit was created to give CA’s myriad vendors not just rules to follow, but actual elements to work with.

Best practices research. Photo art direction. On-camera interviews with employees (35). Information architecture. Editorial / site copy direction. Video editing.  Site design. Incredibly fun project working for global actuarial and management consultancy, Milliman. Realizing that the 10 year old HR brochures gathering dust on receptionists’ desks weren’t exactly reeling in high caliber talent, Milliman called on me to help them rethink their HR communications strategy.

The final product is a standalone site, designed to build credibility with potential new hires by removing the top-down, corporate yoke from careers site content. My best practices research concluded three main points: 1) it’s not just about attracting the best talent, it’s about attracting the best fit for your company: you want employees who stick around for the long haul; 2) credibility is key: letters from the CEO and stuffy, repurposed marketing copy don’t exactly hook from the get-go; real employees’ stories are far more effective; 3) keep it simple: navigation should never be more than one layer deep, nor should a link ever inadvertently kick a user back to the main site.

We shot interviews and portraits in four locations around the US, utilizing the incomparable talents of photographer John Wildgoose. I shot b-roll at 5 locations and created four “Life at Milliman” videos which are showcased in the site. Site feedback has been overwhelmingly positive — both internally and from potential employees. The live site can be seen here.