I have been fortunate enough to work on some really awesome video projects for some well-known brands. This is a collection of some of my favorite video projects I have either Creative Directed, Art Directed or animated.
Ancestry is well-known for it’s DNA testing, however they also have extensive access to public records, archived newspapers and family trees within it’s database. Many users actually come to the site to build their family trees, and some members have as many as 10k people in their trees that date back to the 1600’s!
The Pain Point: New subscribers at Ancestry often hit a ‘brick wall’ after only adding immediate relatives to their tree. There’s many reasons why, but the main one is that the site can be difficult to use if you’re a new user. How might we make the process easier so new users can add ancestors to their trees and be engaged?
The Solution: Maps are a part of our daily lives. Whether we are trying to find the best local restaurant, or we’re looking to see who has that one, particular item available to purchase curbside. The concept is to give users tools, such as maps and a search bar that will help them find ancestors via name, location and timeline.
Shown here are just a few pieces of the project. There were several iterations that were user tested, and what you see is the latest version (yet to go live). A prototype can be shown upon request. I’ve also shown some examples of user interactions and how an animation background has come in quite handy in making delightful user experiences.
My Role: UX Designer (Product)
Sling Television started acquiring large amounts of new subscribers and was at the forefront of streaming live TV. Our team successfully helped them evolve their brand to a more refined and ‘premium’ look– however what they were lacking was a big campaign to set them apart from their competitors.
The Goal: Sling had put out ads on social and paid media but mostly focused on price point and content. They needed something [or someone] to really get peoples’ attention and get new subscribers across multiple touch points.
The Solution: Cue Nick Offerman & Megan Mullally. Sling launched some successful TV spots featuring the power couple that were tongue in cheek, but effective. The concept was based on the act of “Slinging”, a twist on swinging [don’t google that if you’re at work, it’s probably NSFW]. We worked with the broadcast agency during the creative process, collaborating and planning how the digital rollout would tie in with the TV spots.
Sling was now making waves on TVs across the country and we were hot on the heels with a full campaign. The fun part of a big campaign is finding that connective tissue that really ties everything together. In this case, we went with a heart graphic and a tagline that would revolve around how “Slingers love” live TV. This became synonymous with the campaign and worked great as a graphical treatment across the different tactics.
The solution was a creative strategy that focused on specific channels– Roku, Facebook, Instagram and paid media. Once a user clicked an ad, they would go to a site that reinforced the concept. To date, this was Sling’s most successful campaign based on free trials and roll to pay users [unable to share the data externally].
My Role: Creative Director
Agency: LIFT Agency
Victoria Lo: Senior Designer
Zazu is an Intel funded venture that specializes in anonymous data tracking. It helps rental property owners track capacity, movement patterns, gender and time spent at their properties.
The Goal: The team from Zazu had the beginnings of a great product, but still needed a way to control their sensors. The main goal was to design an easy-to-use mobile app so users could easily control their sensors from anywhere in the world.
The Solution: Branding elements were easier to tackle, but the app needed to be done right, and that would take a lot of time and user testing. Together with the Head of Customer Experience and the engineering team, we created low-fidelity prototypes so that the team could start user testing them in interviews with potential customers. Once that phase was approved by the necessary stakeholders, and we had a better understanding of the user’s needs, it was time to create high-fidelity versions in Figma.
Since there were three phases to roll out- Rental, Retail and Enterprise, the app also needed to be scalable. Each phase would also require user testing and lots of prototyping to ensure we were offering a solution to the pain point. Lastly, we created a visual design system that would keep everyone aligned with the overall brand, look and feel of not only the marketing materials, but the hardware as well. Everything had to work together in a harmonious ecosystem. The end solution was a clean design that was ready to go to market.
My Role: Senior Creative Director (Visual and UX Design)
The Tools: Figma, Balsamiq, Photoshop, Illustrator
The Goal: HP Enterprise wanted to update their website with a new look and feel, which previously was a much darker tone with white text on black backgrounds.
The Solution: While it seems easy to just say “let’s go with white backgrounds”, there’s so much more to consider here. The UX/UI, content strategy, product shots and photography just to name a few. After many months of revising and tweaking the aforementioned, the end result is a very clean and robust website that showcases a multitude of products geared towards businesses looking for an edge over its competitors.
My Role: Senior Art Director
Agency: Razorfish
Intel brought me in to help lead the creative effort for their new in-house Incubator program. I helped teams with their logos, website designs, and if necessary app designs. In addition, I managed internal resources and external agencies that we outsourced.
Here are a few samples of things I’ve worked on, including a website for the Intel Incubation Program, a monthly newsletter and screenshots from a video that I creative directed (unable to show the video externally). I also helped many of the internal venture teams with logos, websites, prototypes and any other creative needs. I collaborated with engineers and developers on different projects, such as UX/UI for robotics, cloud data, AI and SaaS platforms. I also helped train teams on how to get the most out of their prototypes during customer interviews.
Role: Senior Creative Director / UX Design
The Goal: PayPal was introducing a new payment method that would allow users to pay via mobile phone. They needed to educate business owners on the benefits of this new payment technology in the form of a microsite.
The Solution: I worked on the UX and really had to think about the content strategy, hierarchy and UI since most of the people who go to this site may not be so technically inclined. We really had to design for the persona of a small business owner who was trying to attract a younger demographic with this technology.
The result is a clean, responsive site that breaks out the value points into sections and also shows three easy steps on how to use the hardware. This made the concept much easier to understand to business owners and even garnered interest in the new payment method. The project was successful and it connected many small business owners with PayPal to use their technology.
My Role: Senior Art Director [UX Design and Visual Design]
Agency: Liquid Agency
The Goal: Nike wanted to update their site and bring some holidays vibes to it. While it would be easy to just throw some gift wrap textures and bows on products {who hasn’t done that before, am I right?], that wasn’t going to cut it. Not for Nike.
The Solution: I was always inspired by the window displays at Macy’s during the holidays [minus those poor kittens and puppies!]. They were always grandiose, and really gave you a feeling or an experience. I decided to show products hanging from the ceiling that would slowly rotate 360°, but you could see the cable that it was hanging from. Maybe even Christmas lights used sparingly for some lighting effects. In the end, the goal was to give people a unique online shopping experience. I believe we achieved that.
Role: Senior Art Director
Agency: Agency.com
The Goal: HP wanted to showcase their new web printing feature and how it could be used on mobile devices.
The Solution: Since this was geared toward users who do everything on their devices, we designed innovative mobile app ideas; one which utilizes horizontal scrolling [at the time this wasn’t really being utilized as it is today] so they could learn more and try an online demo. The end result is a very fluid design that takes the user through an easy step-by-step process of web printing.
My Role: Senior Art Director
Agency: Acxiom
