Digital Design
Thangs x Felicia Day
Adapting Felicia Day's personal brand for her 3D printing line, FD3D, published by Thangs, and creating a cohesive, energetic storefront that let the spirit of the emerging brand shine.
Felicia already had a personal brand, but wanted to reinvent the established color palette in a fun way for her line of 3D products. I love to envision great designs at new angles, so this was a delightful endeavor.
The completed webpage, which followed the standard Thangs format, became a visually unique and cohesive thumbnail gallery that promoted the FD3D and connected Felicia's fun spirit with current fans and 3D printing enthusiasts alike.
I started with the thumbnails, as these would create the most "noise" on the page, providing Felicia and the team with a variety of options. All brand colors were used in the allowing individual products to be highlighted with one that best suited them.
Out of 16 semi-final concepts (all were made available to the team) I narrowed them down to five recommendations that I felt were best-suited for the page. Each thumbnail was designed to account for the overlays automatically generated by Thangs.
Headers were based on the motifs from the thumbnails, and instead of action lines (which looked odd proportionally), diagonal sections of color were added to keep the feeling dynamic, and redirected the eye to the product thumbnails.
Minutes after launch, we realized Thangs pulled header for a web preview image. Our selected header had a lot of underutilized space on the left- where viewers tend to look first. I immediately got to work testing different products in that space, and in under half an hour, we had a revised image up that balanced the page well.
The launch also featured thumbnails that prompted users to choose a subscription to access the products. These featured the two "showcase" models from our launch.
The final webpage, with custom header, portrait with multicolored halftone background, and all image thumbnails. The product team was provided with templates and instructions (for users not used to Adobe Photoshop) on how to generate new thumbnails within smart object placement.
We also needed a badge to signify that some users were permitted to print and sell the 3D assets. I wanted to carry the halftone motif, but make a single-color mark that could be applied in any of Felicia's brand colors. This was also reused as the logo for the FD3D brand with the "Be Weird, Make Stuff" tagline instead of "Authorized Reseller".
Additional graphics were created based on the various products. This poster features the 3D models sculpted by Moonlight Minis,vbased on the hit web series, "The Guild". I used the 3D renders and a modified version of the show's logo to create a poster akin to old school "World of Warcraft" advertisements, the game on which the show was based.
A banner for the debut of Felicia's line on the Thangs front page.
Hospitality Entertainment
For over ten years, my full time job granted me the opportunity to create custom entertainment systems for hotel guest rooms. Along with furthering our clients’ brand initiatives, my design capabilities, combined with my technical prowess, allowed our small company’s portfolio to expand from dozens to thousands of properties within three years.
My core priorities were creating stunning visual designs while encouraging ease of use for the guest- simplifying navigation and removing unnecessary button clicks while serving our clients' needs.
With each screen, my focus was ease of use for the guest- simplifying navigation and removing unnecessary button clicks.
For clients with strong, pre-defined brands like French Quarter Inn (Charleston, SC), additional importance was placed on cohesion with the overall story and vision. Although the UI followed the brand's digital guidelines, I blended elements of the print look-and-feel to make the television interface feel elegant and comfortable.
Once, while I was describing my position at Enseo to an acquaintance in San Francisco, they lit up and described "the coolest hotel TV they'd seen at this little hotel in Houston". To my delight, it was The Lancaster, and my custom design.
Thangs
To further the reach of Thangs’ influencer program, I was given the task of creating branded pages so that the influencers’ storefronts looked clean and cohesive.
I was also asked to create social media advertisements and channel my tongue-in-cheek humor to the fullest degree.
As with Felicia's FD3D project, I was asked to create storefront graphics for other brands, such as Across the Legions. Although "gritty" isn't my usual wheelhouse, the clients loved the look.
Additional graphics for Across the Legions' storefront. Templates were provided so that the clients could adapt and modify to display new products.
"Bloodzilla" was the second movie poster based ad, featuring the launch of a skeletal dragon.
DnDShorts' 3D models featured a lot of humor, so I was asked to do ads based off of old monster movie posters.
The Bloodzilla model was released concurrently with a trumpet-wielding skeleton, playing off of an internet meme. This called for a 1960's-esque record cover.