GRAPHIC LANGUAGE RE-DESIGN 2011
(currently in production)
Note: for the purposes of this portfolio site, the images have been cropped to allow for greater visibility of detail. The site is currently in production where actual copy will be written and dropped onto the live site.
OBJECTIVE: To redesign the company website, which acts as the main calling card to potential clients. While the main objective was to update the look and feel, the challenge of the design was taking the site from a nearly exclusive use of Flash to a SEO/SEM, HTML compatible site.
EMPLOYER: Graphic Language
PROJECT RESPONSIBILITIES: Art Director/Senior Designer. Initial concepts for the site's functionality were a collaboration between myself, Rick Phillips - President and Owner of Graphic Language, and our project manager. We knew that we were going to break the traditional rule of a site's aspect ratio being 1024x768. We wanted to be able to take advantage of the latest model monitors which are setup for HD standards and would allow us a much larger palette to work with. Once functionality concepts were finalized, a strategy document was drawn up outlining the site's overall structure. As the sole designer of the site, I used that information as a foundation and began laying out the design. I was given full creative control with one simple rule; the design had to look as cool as the site's ultimate functionality will be. Rick is happy.
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ORLEANS HOMES RE-DESIGN 2011
(currently in production)
OBJECTIVE: Update a repeat client's existing site design to standout from the multitude of other home builder sites. Orleans Homes wanted to give prospective buyers a unique experience among home builder sites by making it fun to visit, highly interactive, and intuitive to use - all while maintaining a professional polished look. In initial discussions with the client, the concept of creating a pop-up book style presentation space on the homepage came up. Given the pop-up book's intuitive concept and the utilization of bright colors, the design invites interaction from users. For example, hitting next on this scene (when produced) will bring in a new home, family demographic, and will also highlight features such as green materials used in the construction of the home. Orleans Homes builds everything from town homes to huge single-family homes and they wanted the new site to speak to their wide array of products as well as represent the myriad of prospective buyers that might be interested in their homes.
EMPLOYER: Graphic Language
PROJECT RESPONSIBILITIES: Art Director/Senior Designer. Initially, there was some question as to the feasibility of the pop-up book homepage design due to the inherent difficulties associated with the design and animation of the several different pieces within the design. While challenging, I was able to mock up the initial presentation space, complete with pop-up house, family, and informative rollover icons. The design received a glowing response from the client, and is currently in its design phase.
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NEW HOME FEED
OBJECTIVE: To design an easy, non-technical way for homebuilders to get their home listings out to the major home listing sites like Trulia and Zillow from one location instead of having to go and upload/change listings on each individual site.
EMPLOYER: Graphic Language
PROJECT RESPONSIBILITIES: Art Director/Senior Designer. I worked collaboratively on the design concept alongside Rick Phillips - President and Owner of Graphic Language. The design direction for the site was for it to look clean, fresh, and inviting to a range of prospective clients. The site has two chief components; 1. The marketing, or public facing side that the user sees upon initially visiting the site, and 2. The back-end content management portion, which houses the functionality of the site. The sole purpose of the front-end is to explain the services as simply and cleanly as possible in order to entice prospective clients to sign up for the service. Once a user has signed up and can access the content management portion of the site, they're presented with a technically powerful yet easy to use interface, which contains many of the same design cues found on the front-end of the site. The challenge of the design was to bridge the fun, lively, and intuitive feel of the front-end of the site, with the broad power of the content management system, while making the user to feel confident in the product and its use as a professional solution to their marketing needs.
www.newhomefeed.com
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WEB MARKETING - EMAIL BLASTS
OBJECTIVE: Spread the Word! The design execution is always different but the objectives are always the same - getting the client's products and/or services into public view via e-blasts which often lead users to one-off landing pages that continue the theme and go into more depth about the products or services.
EMPLOYER: Graphic Language
PROJECT RESPONSIBILITIES: Art Director/Senior Designer. I worked closely with the marketing department and CEO on marketing various projects, taking their objectives into consideration when creating design concepts. Since content largely determines design constraints, I check in with the marketing team as they finalize the content requirements and maintain a dialog with them in order to begin to conjure up different design approaches. When designing for web marketing, I try to remain focused on the main point of the product or initiative and remove any excess graphic content that takes away from that. Web marketing should be simple, concise, and clearly focused. The concept of the piece should be evident within the first 2-3 seconds to the viewer and should intrigue them with an idea or offer that makes them want to learn more.
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SUMMERHILL HOMES WEBSITE REDESIGN AND ACCOMPANYING MOBILE SITE
OBJECTIVE: SummerHill Homes came back to Graphic Language with a request to design/build them a new website. The design proposal included a mobile site that would be streamlined for ease of use and limited bandwidth, although powerful enough to allow users to search SummerHill's entire inventory of available homes.
EMPLOYER: Graphic Language
PROJECT RESPONSIBILITIES: Art Director/Senior Designer. The focus of the homepage was to allow new home buyers to quickly see the communities and regions where SummerHill Homes are located, and to get those potential buyers to those specific pages as quickly as possible. We really focused on the ability to drive traffic to a specific community with one mouse click. The previous version of the site would lose potential home buyers because it took too long for users to get to the pages they were looking for. The second objective was simple - give them a clean, contemporary looking site to instill an overarching sense of confidence in brand quality.
www.summerhillhomes.com
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MERIDIAN PROPERTY COMPANY WEBSITE REDESIGN
OBJECTIVES: The Meridian Property Company looked to Graphic Language to redesign their website - the old site failed to drive traffic to the service specific portals within the site, and didn't do a good job of showcasing prior work/case studies. Equally important, the site was overdue for a design update in order to create a more polished image for the brand.
In addressing the first objective, I needed to design a mechanism that would quickly drive user traffic to one of three main service sections; Build To Suit, Acquisitions and Deal Structures. In order to facilitate users selecting one of these main service sections. the design solution was to make the portals prominent and easily accessible throughout the site.
EMPLOYER: Graphic Language / 2011
PROJECT RESPONSIBILITIES: Acted as Creative Director / Senior Designer on the website design and worked closely with Meridian Property Company to achieve the look and functionality of the site.
www.meridianpropertycompany.com
