Background

Before the online proposal, I worked with a 20+ page PDF presentation in Adobe InDesign. However, this presentation came with several supplements that pushed the entire package up above 60 pages. The user had to open each document individually and even had to go to a website to view one of the videos I created.

The time it took to produce these proposal packages combined with the overall clunkiness of how they presented to the prospect made this project ripe for some streamlining.

Online Proposal Build

I built the entire online proposal from scratch using CSS Grid instead of Bootstrap. Initially, we needed the packages small and, because they aren’t super technologically complicated, I didn’t need a ton of dependencies weighing the whole thing down. So this project was a perfect excuse to try CSS Grid in a live environment.

I’m finding CSS Grid to be a viable solution as more and more browsers allow for it. It’s lightweight and as easy to implement into a project as CSS3.

Online Proposal Results

The original proposal format took a few days to produce. It would only take me 5-10 minutes to make the PDF presentation in InDesign and 20 minutes to assemble the prospect’s custom video. However, it took my colleagues another 2-3 days to produce all the required supplements.

With this new online proposal format, I was able to cut the total time down to about 5-10 minutes through the magic of JavaScript.

I coded all the documents’ customization needs into a single JavaScript file. So, every time I need to build a new proposal, I just update the new JavaScript file and the whole package immediately customizes to our needs.

The final online proposal is even more robust than the original but presents to the prospect far cleaner and more comfortable to digest in addition to being streamlined. That combined with the differentiation from our competitors and the slashed production time makes this project a huge win.

T-shirt design is so much fun. I love the challenge of simplifying a concept so that it works on a shirt. Even more, t-shirt design is a challenge in understanding your target audience. If you design something you like, but it falls flat with the consumer then you must go back to the drawing board.

With Sad Runner, I want to create designs that are motivational in nature while also keeping with current trends to keep the design popular. No small task.

Here’s each t-shirt design I came up with for the first test round:

Currently, we’re testing each t-shirt design using a direct to garment printer that allows us to order small quantities. However I expect, if the shirts sell well, we’ll start to order custom productions which will give me even more options for design and graphics placement.

I’ve always wanted to sell shirts online and have an excuse to do t-shirt design regularly. Now I finally have a reason to get good at designing shirts for the Sad Runner audience.

For each t-shirt design, I started in Adobe Illustrator to craft the initial graphic in vector format. Once I was happy with the design, I imported it into Photoshop to add textures and vintage wear and tear to the graphic.

I thought the initial t-shirt design concepts turned out great. However customers will be the ultimate judge of whether I got it right or missed the mark. Still, I’m looking forward to coming up with future concepts to try out.

The Medicaid program is of critical importance to American society, but with spending outpacing inflation, states must seek ways to reduce costs and improve efficiency. That’s where Cornerstone comes in to play.

Cornerstone partners with states in dire need of savings to improve their Medicaid programs using patented solutions that both improve health and reduce costs.

When working at Cornerstone, from developing the brand to the website design, I found it refreshing to restrict myself based on my target audience’s demands and tastes.

To achieve this, I spent a lot of time researching the US Government’s design standards. Their standards are surprisingly well-thought-out and communicated as well as any leading tech company. I knew if I could meet these standards, then my target market would find some familiarity. After all, their internal apps, websites, and documents all followed this same standard. If I want our audience to fill at-home with our presentation and our brand, then I needed to play along with everyone else in the space.

For Cornerstone’s main marketing website design, I utilized a lot of stock imagery to help tell the narrative of Cornerstone and what the company can do to improve lives. Each page is optimized for search engines and features a call to action inviting readers to work with Cornerstone on their next Medicaid project. I built a custom theme for the site on top of the Divi framework using WordPress

The site is of course mobile responsive, keeping information front and center on every device.

Like all my print work, I laid out this corporate brochure using Adobe InDesign though the piece exports to a PDF instead of sending to a printer. Our sales reps email this PDF (or a link to it) to consultants looking to know more about the services we offer. Each rep has a version of his/her own with their unique contact information complete with link tagging to track the success of the project.

The PDF itself brings a little interactivity as it links to our website and video presentations all from within the corporate brochure’s design. So readers can click links in the booklet to view more content online. This interactivity turns a 20-page corporate brochure into a multi-media presentation that differentiates the company from competitors.

The corporate brochure has worked well for DSI over the years as I loaded it with information our prospects routinely request but packaged it in an easy to digest way.

Each year I update the design to reflect the current styles, statistics, and colors for the brand which keeps this brochure up-to-date and ever useful for the sales team.

I don’t do a ton of print layouts these days, but I still enjoy them. I like the challenge of cutting up a bunch of content into digestible chunks and formats, so the reader isn’t overwhelmed.

This project was a fun one because it had more pages than usual so I got to treat it more like a magazine which allows me to play with layouts and imagery more than your average corporate brochure.

The colored squares layered over the ‘x’ represent the layers of photos users collect in their account. I think it works quite well to show people what the app’s all about but in an understated way.

Beyond that, I went with a bold yet simple typeface. I knew the logo would always appear small in the UI of the app because we wanted the photos front and center. Any logo design I came up with would have to work well at a small size.

Logo Design Colors

Because FlexPic is consumer-facing, the process also allowed me to work with colors I don’t usually get to play with in a corporate environment.

I knew I would end up designing for Android in addition to iOS, so I wanted colors those users would find familiar. That’s why, for the color scheme, I consulted Google Material’s color palette.

I like the colors in Material and found the shades of teal used for the FlexPic logo design perfect for the theme and brand attitude we pursued.

Logo Design Results

The FlexPic logo design worked perfectly for the app. But the logo design process acted as a kind of style kick-off for us when planning the entire project.

I developed a style guide based on the logo and company vision which helped support the project and made design decisions more straightforward. Whenever the developers had a question on the app, they consulted the style guide first, and it informed their choices each time.

Overall I’m pleased with the simplicity of the FlexPic logo design. It served the app well but was also a fun process and experiment in consumer-facing branding.

I knew from my user research than many would have questions related to the services DSI provides, so I made access to help articles just as prominent as the login form fields. I don’t feel comfortable hiding any helpful content, especially for users who may arrive to the site concerned or even agitated.

A good amount of users click those help links before ever logging into the app. Our research suggests they remain cautious at first and poke around before login.

Even more, that addition of helpful content transforms the page from just another app login screen to a hub of information that guides the user through the process of working with the company.

Clients as well as the users themselves, immediately noted appreciation for the design and the spirit of transparency and open content we promote with the screen.

Overall, our feedback over the last couple of years has been favorable with users appreciating the helpful information as well as the app’s ease of use. And the app login screen is one of the few areas we haven’t attempted to redesign since the launch as it’s still working quite well.

I did the initial conceptualization in Sketch which allowed us to demo the design for other members of the team. When it came time to produce a working prototype, I then coded the app login screen using Bootstrap before handing it off to the development team.

Designing the app login screen was an educational challenge for me as it was the first time I designed a login of this nature using Bootstrap. It was a lot of fun to try and pull off my Sketch design with the code.

Though we needed to make compromises to get this app login screen to work with the .NET framework, overall I still like the design and am proud of how well it serves the users.

Branding Background

Medicaid is the most extensive health program by enrollment and represents one-sixth of the national health economy. With 72.4 Million members it serves as the insurance safety net for the nation’s most vulnerable populations including children, the elderly and the developmentally challenged.

Cornerstone impacts these at-risk groups by partnering with states in dire need of savings to improve their Medicaid programs. Cornerstone uses patented solutions that both improve health for the population and also reduces costs.

Logo Design & Branding

I focused on carefully developing the brand and worked to set a robust creative foundation for the organization so as it ultimately scales, the brand grows with it.

When developing a brand and its style, it doesn’t matter what you like; it only matters what your target market responds to in the end. I knew Cornerstone’s target market was in government and with that came specific intrinsic values.

Both stability and credibility are essential when working with government agencies, so there’s not a lot of room for flashiness. Many feel that limits self-expression. I disagree, I appreciate the restrictions because it forces you to find creative solutions within the rules of the game.

When working at Cornerstone, from developing the brand to even the website, I found it refreshing to restrict myself based on my target.

I spent a lot of time researching the US Government’s design standards. Their standards are well-thought-out and documented as good as any tech company. So that became my rule book for the entirety of the Cornerstone branding project.

I knew if I could meet these standards when branding, then my target market would find some familiarity with them. After all, their internal apps, websites, and documents all followed this standard. If I want our audience to fill at-home with our presentation and our branding, then I needed to play along with everyone else in the space.

Branding Color

We went with a classic color scheme because blue would be the dominant color they would respond to most. I consulted Google Material’s colors palette for my individual color choices. Not only did I like their shades of blue, I felt restricting myself to a specific color library would create a stronger foundation for the brand.

Branding Results

The logo and branding guidelines serve Cornerstone well as they begin to grow. We’ve received many compliments on the logo as well as the overall presentation of the brand and values.

I look forward to working with Cornerstone in the future to further my branding work and impact more lives through the overhaul of Medicaid in this country.

Process

Each time my process starts the same, with research. I begin by creating or updating my Buyer Persona data. I think it’s essential to keep your Buyer Persona’s up-to-date so I check them annually. This exercise always uncovers new things about my users, what they like, what they’re looking for, and how best to communicate with them through my design work.

Once I complete my research, for a website redesign, I look at the existing content to see what needs better organization, where I can streamline the technology used; I make a note of anything I think I need to rework. After that, I start sketching my ideas and begin my plan for the structure of the site.

Website Redesign Specifics

For the DSI 2019 website redesign, I chose to build a custom theme using the Divi framework on WordPress. The site itself utilizes a lot of landing pages for advertising, so I wanted to build on a platform that allowed us to A/B test and re-use content quickly from page to page. Divi brought a lot of functionality out-of-the-box which was nice for a change. I then just customized the parts of the code I needed to make it work for our online strategy.

The entire website redesign process with, research and planning, took a few months with the bulk of the design work coming in at around 30 days or so. The site itself had a lot of content that needed re-formatting to work with the new framework, so that took the most time.

Like I mentioned earlier, I enjoyed this website redesign as it allowed me to get better as a designer and also learn more about what makes my target market tick.

I worked as the Communications Director for MotelChurch and oversaw all the creative design and marketing efforts for the nonprofit, including the development of their websites.

MotelChurch has three websites with three distinct purposes, though I wanted them to all work together as a single entity. Stylistically, they all shared the same elements while each one functioned independently of the others.

I developed a common theme for all three sites to use which kept each site’s styles in sync. I built each website on WordPress with my theme work based on the Genesis Framework.

From there, customizations were made to each site to ensure they all worked as planned. Some of these customizations ranged from serving video via an Amazon S3 server to interacting with our mailing list provider.

The leading marketing site utilizes a lot of photos from out at the motels. The images are compelling and emotional, propelling the story of MotelChurch. Compelling storytelling built the nonprofit and the website is now an extension of that. I also implemented SSL and integrated the leading site with Stripe so that the nonprofit could take donations online.

The next site I built was the Help Center, a self-service documentation library designed to answer questions volunteers have about serving at the motels.

The third site is a training site to educate volunteer leaders who plan to run different initiatives at the nonprofit. The site utilizes multiple video modules that I edited, and I also helped co-write the curriculum taught in the videos.

As a result, we were able to scale marketing efforts in multiple states and also train new leaders efficiently and painlessly.