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About
🦄 Former world traveler, I am a design generalist with a background in front-end design, SaaS, app design and a dabbling of design for AR, and VR.
I started my career in web design back in the days before we called it the hamburger menu (we called it the shutter) but quickly found great jobs that taught me to master all types of media from print, video editing, to responsive design and brand development. I have touched everything from letterpress printmaking to game design for trade-shows, to mobile app UI.
What I love is visual problem solving, figuring out what my users need and mapping out the complex system of an interface and user flows for both digital and physical environments. I love the entire process from the research to the execution, and I especially enjoy the teamwork and collaboration that you need to make it all happen.
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Projects
The Creative Coast came to me with a problem, Geekend wasn’t working for the community in the way it had originally been designed to perform, and part of the reason was the name, "Geekend" is limiting; the name implies a self-identification as a geek, and a propensity for technology. Perceptions that instigated the rebrand included, "Geekend is only for tech people" and “*Geekend"* implies Weekend.
Because of this identity crisis, no one wants to sponsor the event— they didn't understand what it really is or who it’s for, so we had work to do. The Creative Coast also desired to get back to their mission, and to re-imagine what Geekend would be — a more inclusive event that also provided events throughout the year, not only on one designated weekend — to serve Savannah’s Entrepreneurs, Technologists, Creatives & Makers.
I led the board through a series of brainstorming sessions with mind-mapping, affinitizing, and writing and over several months. During this invaluable time, we identified central values and themes, which allowed the new brand — GRIT, to emerge. GRIT is **G**eekend **R**e**I**nven**T**ed. Savannah's got GRIT!
> *GRIT, formerly known as Geekend, is a two-day conference that brings together the brightest minds in technology and innovation and showcases Savannah’s hottest startups, technologists and makers.*
From here the visual design work began. I took the tack of reviewing the brainstorming processes and researching more on Savannah. I found historical maps on Library of Congress website, and through exploring the maps I unearthed the cities movement and growth throughout the years. This process helped me to identify textures and shapes I would associate with the word-mark. When deciding what typefaces to add to the system I went back to the mission and vision, and paired the mark with typefaces that evoke sincere authenticity, but remain playful and current.
> GRIT is your chance to interact with people taking the tech and creative industries by storm. Go to our Facebook page or follow us on Twitter for all the GRIT details and updates.
In winter 2019 we announced that Geekend was now GRIT, and it was widely celebrated.
This past winter, 2023, we had our first official GRIT conference, with the theme *"Hidden Gems"* as we spotlit our own local business leaders leading the way in Savannah. I led the design for the theme with a hidden typographic message that would become the theme of all the years planning.
Remitly had just updated their branding and needed someone to audit the current website and make edits to the design of the old components to match the new design, as well as suggest new components for their website content and reorganization of content. In addition, I laid the foundation for a new design system using their new brand elements, and adding new features such as updated interactivity and accessibility enhancements (bring it up to WCAG /AA standards), such as dark mode. While each country Remitly's product supports has unique and specific messaging, the basic components need to work to throughout the world. To ensure success user testing was used in not only the flow of the web components but also in their design, down to the fonts.
These new designs are began to roll out this summer across the globe for desktop and mobile devices.
When I first began to work for Candor Health I was given the role of Senior Experience Designer instead of a specific UX title because there just was no money in the start-up for a UX designer and a Multimedia designer, and this role encompassed both. I was told the major reason for my hire was to help them to resolve what they thought were design issues in their product in getting customers to complete sign-up for the service we offered.
During my onboarding I made notes as to where I might be able to find information from users about our product, and noted we had Google analytics that was not set-up to track users through the product because of HIPPA compliance requirements, but that we did have a Customer Support Center with four different support operators.
Because there was no tracking analysis and we didn’t have money to do product testing outside of our own employees, the only option to figure out what problems users were having that were creating barriers to sign-up was to study the information directly from the Customer Service Department. I had never worked with a Customer Service Department before, and this type of field research was new to me. I was completely out of my element.
I began by asking their team if I could shadow them while they worked, and I did so to both familiarize myself with their process and to find out how they stored the incoming data from customers so I could use it for analysis. The Customer Support Team was excited to have me job shadow them and learn about what they did, and they were eager to share direct insights they had observed from customers to begin to point me in the right direction.
During my shadowing I was able to see where they input customer comments, concerns, questions about our product, and from there I was able to request this information —and helped them scrub it of user identifiers— so I could begin to sort through the comments and affinitize the cases into larger user stories.****
**The outcome of this process,** sitting with the Customer Support team and determining where I could gain more direct customer information to help build a better product, was a collection of insights that led me to suggest changing the sign-up flow for our product. To change and reframe the user flows for sign-up and resulted in the development team agreeing to re-write the product architecture fundamentally in order to support our customer. This was a huge shift, but upon implementation **increased customer sign-up by more than 20% and reduced Customer Support Calls drastically.**
Oak Works Savannah came to me during the pandemic asking for help in designing a prototype for Savannah Morning News in iOS. The organization already had an app, but it was a non-native web app and it was outdated. I designed a prototype for iOS, based on client needs, in collaboration with Keith from Oak Works, to address the major issues with user flow, branding, and new features. This prototype led to the updated app in place today.
Side Projects
Inspired by the sign-painting posters I saw on my everyday walk in Chicago, I set out to design a display typeface, and used examples of these works as a basis for the fonts. As I studied sign painting scripts, and the works of sign painters, I quickly realized that a good painted sign had not one, but at least two if not three differing styles of typography. From here Joe and Elaine were conceived, as well as their friend Jim (WIP) a supporting member of the trio.
Acton Academy Savannah was starting its children's business fair, and came to me for to build the look and feel of this launch year. We decided to meet the range of families living in savannah to take a playful, and varied approach, creating materials that could be intermixed and remixed.
To begin I tapped into the interests of the children and the parents. The result was two mascots (requested by the children at the Academy) that included a ferocious tiger and Godzilla. The parents wanted to see more scholarly imagery, and illustrations, and I determined to create a plethora of logos that worked together to create history and depth.
> Inspired by letterpress and linocut printmaking, and the style of *Hatch* Show *Prints*
The brand also utilizes three of my typefaces, FOUNDRY, Joe & Elaine.