Creative Director
Nov 2012–Present
Founded a UX agency, managed teams of 2–20, and acquired clients including Esmail Corp., Glenstone Museum, Stoli, One Kings Lane, Baked, and Asphalt Green.
I strategized, designed, developed, and oversaw implementation of various products including a custom ad serving platform that delivers more than 1m impressions per day, an online tool that allows users to create and distribute interactive investor pitches, and a global ARG. Additionally, I led UX evaluations for mobile and desktop sites and applications.
Devona Brand
Ongoing : : Internal : : Brand
Creative Direction and Management of the Devona brand: Because interaction is the core of every experience — digital, analog, and IRL — we weave intersection into all aspects of our brand, regardless of whether or not it happens online. Our logo and display type is built around binary 1s and 0s and die-cut into our business cards, giving the user a different experience depending on their perspective — and even inviting them to dig into the significance of 111011.
Our custom checks are embedded with unusual (and fully compliant) security features like a watermark and graphics that are only visible under a black light. A closer look reveals various easter eggs, like our company motto — in Latin, of course — and a personal reference that’s near and dear to each member of the company. Our blank checks are designed to be printed and tracked with our in-house project management system.
Esmail Corp Website
2019 : : Esmail Corp : : Company Site
Creative Direction, UI, and Development of a desktop and mobile site for director Sam Esmail's production company, Esmail Corp. To illustrate the world-building that ties together Esmail’s most popular shows and upcoming projects — and appeal to his highly inquisitive fan base, who are always eager to dig deeper, crack a code, or play a game — we immersed them an experience that literally subverts their expectations, building the site upward into a living, breathing universe that endlessly revents itself and teases what’s to come.
When the series that Esmail Corp is promoting changes, the site also transforms from one world to another. Mr. Robot’s world of corporate conspiracy is represented by a metropolitan skyscraper that scrolls up, up, and up to reveal who’s actually pulling the strings; a desert town captures the moral bankruptcy and isolation of Briarpatch; and a pharmaceutically sedated military-industrial office park represents the world of Homecoming.
Visiting the site from a mobile device takes the user inside the main building that is shown on the desktop site. By “getting into” the building’s elevator, users can move up and down through all the floors — and stop on each one to explore, dig for easter eggs, and interact with the characters there.
To get users to do more than observe, the site has to do more than be observable. So we filled it with easter eggs, puzzles, cryptic messages, hidden games, and tones that can be combined together and played on an oscilloscope — and even in a “customer service” call center that endlessly takes users through a labyrinthian decision tree that may bear fruit … or may not.
Play NGL Media
2016 : : NGL Media : : Ad Serving Platform
Creative Direction, UI, and Development of an SSP/DSP network much like Double Click or Google Ads. We saved NGL Media money and increased their productivity by building a custom ad platform to simplify their workflow and bring a number of previously outsourced processes in house. Play NGL Media transcodes videos, creates embeddable video players that can be shared across the web, and provides detailed reporting on the whole kit and caboodle — all from one tidy interface that’s simple enough to be run by a single employee.
When your code is served more than a million times a day, every KB can cost you big bucks. So we built a completely bespoke JavaScript player that can parse VAST and VPAID tags, work directly with publishers or get passed through DSPs, and display in four different configurations without needing external libraries or extensions — all for less than 30KB.
The differences among orders, ads, targets, filters and reports, can be confusing. So the site needed to be supremely organized and easily give its users the ability to keep tabs on thousands of accounts, orders, and players. Color-coded sections give a quick visual cue as to where you are.
When you have a ton of data to manage and very few hands to manage it, you need your technology to do the work for you — and you need it to be reliable. Play NGL Media has not required any major updates in more than five years. At more than 1,000,000 impressions a day, that is reliable.
HereStory
2019 : : Borrit Films : : Auto Tour Mobile Application
For this auto tour of the Gettysburg battlefield, “U” is the (time) traveler, and “X” is getting lost in history’s landscape. We wanted to keep our history buffs focused on their surroundings—what happened in Gettysburg, and exactly where—instead of on their weird, futuristic phones, so we gave them an app with only the most basic functionality and design.
The graphics simply alternate between an illustrated map on “driving screens” and a picture of the relevant landmark on “stop screens.” This lets users immediately know whether to be driving or stopping during each section of audio.
The app is both manageable while driving a car, since a third of the audio plays in transit, and accessible to older audiences, since a large percentage of users are over 65. Finally, the battle sites have no wifi, so the app has to work without being dependent on a connection.