Context:
TEENick is a creative sub-brand of Nickelodeon designed to appeal to aspiring teens (girls and boys ages 9-12). This programming segment needed a new on-air brand toolkit, including a logo redesign and a complete new look. The previous design was outdated and hard to use on-air. Some of the goals of the redesign were to showcase TEENick graphics and talent in the context of real kids’environments, to make the look relatable to tweens/teens, and to showcase TEENick talent as celebrities and make them shine.
My role:
+ I led the design rebranding of TEENick. As art director I wrote a creative brief for the project, and invited 3 design companies to pitch their concepts.
+ I selected the winning pitch, and oversaw the entire execution of the design from beginning to its final implementation on-air, collaborating with Adolescent, a NYC design company.
+ The final toolkit integrated existing show logos into a seamless, flexible design used on-air and online. The contemporary, iconic graphics system is comprised of graphic patterns, buttons, and stickers as a showcase for changing TEENick talent and logos.
The rebrand resulted in increased viewership of the target market—viewership grew from 1.65 million to 2.14 million during this time.
See the TEENick brand style guide.
Watch TEENick branded animated spots:
Zoey Bumper 1 | Zoey Bumper 2 | Naked Brothers 1 | Naked Brothers 2
Design/Animation: Adolescent
Photography: Yoko Inoue
Context:
"The Blueprint for Joy" was a week-long yoga conference featuring international yoga and meditation teachers and prominent authors. The promotional campaign included outdoor banners, posters, postcards, magazine ads, and a website.
My role:
+ I was the art director for the project. I designed and developed the overall visual concept for the branding (overlaying a vintage subtle body anatomy map over contemporary photography), key art, and color palette for the campaign.
+ I collaborated with the photographic duo Les Guzman to select the most dynamic and iconic images from their preexisting photography for the Union Square banners.
+ I directed and oversaw the design of all of the promotional materials.
Context:
Nickelodeon uses seasonal branding to refresh its brand look on-air. Brand style guides serve to unify the on-air look, so that elements created by the in-house team and out of house vendors look unified and cohesive.
My role:
+ As Creative Director at Nickelodeon, I created style guides to set and maintain a visual direction for the brand on-air and off-air. This style guide was for spring/summer season and the goal was to evoke excitement about new shows and celebrity appearances on Nickelodeon.
+ The style guide begins with a mood board to set the tone for the typography and visual style for the season. It then breaks down the components of the look: color palette, type and character treatments, sample compositions.
This was a show open designed for a TLC reality show.
My role:
I was working for Leroy & Clarkson at the time and designed the show open design frames. While these are still frames, they are designed with motion in mind.
Creative Director: Daniel Fries
3 Network IDs: Splash | Catch | Smell
This project won a Promax/BDA Gold Award for excellence in Art Direction. Watch the animation.
Context:
Nickelodeon needed on-air branding for their summer programming to evoke the joy of summer days, and to showcase the Nickelodeon logo in creative ways.
My role:
+ I was the art director on the project and collaborated with Adolescent, a NYC design boutique, to create the design and animation of these 3 promotional ID spots.
Context:
Chrysler needed a large format panoramic video to celebrate their history and their legacy of design innovation. These large panoramic videos were designed for an exhibit and event, showing Chrysler's leadership in design since 1920.
My role:
+ I was one of two lead designers on the project working at Zona design. I researched and designed storyboards for each decade, and also designed transitions from one decade to the next
+ Some of the challenges in this project included: researching and integrating imagery from different time periods and sources in a way that looked seamless, intentional, and compelling; combining imagery of cars with contemporary design and making visual connections between them; transitioning from one period to the next seamlessly; working at a very large scale.
Context:
Nora Heilmann is a yoga, meditation, and pranayama teacher based in New York. She teaches classes, workshops, and teacher training programs nationally and internationally.
My role:
I designed and oversaw the production of all the design deliverables for Nora's personal brand: business cards, postcards, posters, etc.
Photography:
Context:
Cookie Devi is a woman-owned, small baked goods business based in NYC. The cookies are vegan, gluten-free, homemade, and organic.
My role:
+ I designed the company’s logo and color palette, which was used on cards, stickers, cookie tins, and in-store signage.
+ I created the company name. The word “devi” means goddess in Sanskrit. The name alludes to the owner of the company who runs the company single-handedly, doing all of the baking, packing, distribution and marketing on her own.
Context:
NAVA NYC is a company that customizes yoga and meditation programs for offices in order to create more mindful and less stressful workplaces. The word Nava means 9 in Sanskrit. The number 9 is considered an auspicious number which represents infinity and the company's nine women founders.
NAVA NYC 's target audience is conservative workplaces such as financial, law, and accounting firms. In order to appeal to these companies, we designed a clean, minimal, and elegant look for the brand which included a website, social media content, video tutorials, business cards, and printed materials.
My role:
+ I was the creative director on the project and oversaw the execution of all the design elements.
+ I wrote the brand tagline: “inner peace at work".
Web design: Anna Becker Design
Context:
The Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards (KCAs) is Nickelodeon's yearly award show, honoring the year's biggest television, movie, and music acts as voted by viewers worldwide of Nickelodeon networks. Each year the award show features a celebrity host.
My role:
+ I was the art director for the KCA's on-air promotion campaign in 2008. I collaborated with the design firm Adolescent to create the animated graphic identity for the show including months in advance promotion and animated graphics for the awards show itself.
+ The on-air campaign integrated green screen footage of the celebrity host, Jack Black, into the graphics. I prepared for the shoot by creating detailed storyboards for all visual needs. The result was humorous and dynamic, as Jack's face and body entered the screen in a variety of creative ways, becoming part of lower third info graphics, full screen promo spots, and some mid-episode screen take overs.
Watch the spots:
This was a pitch created for a proposed redesign of Disney Kids’ tv channel.
My role: Art Director & Designer
These mood boards propose 3 different potential directions for the network redesign, establishing a direction for color palette, typography, and composition. Nickelodeon and Disney were in tight competition, and Disney wanted to redesign with a more sophisticated look to match the aspirational work that Nickelodeon was doing in appealing to tweens (kids 9-12).
DIRECTION 1: Straight to the point. Characters that kids love are the highlight. BIG crops of characters’ faces and very BIG, clear type. Only the information you need onscreen and nothing else. The image cropping creates a fresh, communicative feel and also inspires a choppy, fun animated style. Idiosyncratic, eclectic mix of typefaces.
DIRECTION 2: Using a system of circles and stripes to make patterns (from very simple to complex) and holding shapes. Bright, well composed colors create a confident, active, energetic mood. Overlapping shapes and colors create new colors and depth.
DIRECTION 3: There’s something exciting about a revelation. Different visual methods could be used to hide and then reveal an element which supports the main tune-in message. Kids’ hands move elements around in the frame (showing that kids are in control).
This project was featured in Step Inside Design magazine's best designs of the year issue.
Context:
MTV needed promotion for an on-air contest dubbed "Free Ride" which was developed in conjunction with the National Resource Council. The spot voiced by rap artist Nas offers viewers the chance to win hybrid cars and college scholarships by writing about how they envision their world and their future.
My role:
+ I was the lead designer and animator on the project. I oversaw a small team of designers and animators at Eyeball NYC and collaborated with the lead illustrator Hye-Jin Hwang.
Context:
The Arizona Capital Representation Project is a non-profit legal service organization that assists indigent persons facing the death penalty in Arizona through direct representation, consulting services, training, and education. The organization receives no government funding and relies on the support of generous donations. To raise funds, the organization initiated a CD project featuring music from organization’s lawyers and collaborators on the topic of ending the death penalty. The project is titled “No Noose: Music to End the Death Penalty"
My role:
+ I developed the creative direction, logo design, and package design for the CD. When the clients first approached me, they had a very dark and pessimistic vision of the style of the CD. Through discussion and utilizing my perspective as an outsider looking in, I was able to steer the project in a more optimistic and uplifting direction. The work of these lawyers gives me hope that the death penalty will eventually be eliminated, and I wanted to express that hopefulness and optimism in the CD package, to inspire funding for the AZ Capital Project’s important work.
One of the lawyers at the firm said: "I love this. I found this design totally unexpected and refreshing. The work we do is often so heavy and dark, I wasn't expecting white fluffy clouds. You helped us see our work from a different perspective. Thank you!"
+ I integrated drawings created by Chuck Rienhart, a client of the AZ Capital Project. I felt fortunate to be able to use his drawings, as they express his authentic voice, and reflect the resilience and creativity possible even while incarcerated.
This book was designed as in-house document at Nickelodeon to introduce the design team and their capabilities, in an environment where the role of design was unappreciated.
My role: Art Director, Writer
Designer: David Lucido
Some years back, I found a broken vintage Mack truck logo. It looked like someone had broken it off the front of a truck. The letter 'M' was broken, and so it read 'lack' in rusty, silver script. I found this quite poetic and hung it over my bed for a long time.
I recreated the broken logo as an embroidery in wool on felt.
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This blue image is a recreation of a pen/ink sketch I drew of my sister sucking her thumb, back when she and I were roommates in college. Later, I recreated it as a silkscreen print.
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Drawings of my dad when he was asleep in the last years of his life.
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