Rohan Woods School

The Rohan Woods website is a project I worked on as Creative Director at SteadyRain. Aside from creating the design itself, I also led a crew in creating an introductory video to reside in the header throughout the website. As Creative Director, I much prefer to be hands-on whenever possible, and I went to the extreme on this one... from editing DNN modules (to ensure every single one had the correct margins) to personally taking the camera on location and doing pickup shots for the video.

The first comp... loved by designers, but missing the client's vision.That's not to say that this design came easy though... regardless of a fantastic client relationship, it took us a while to get our visions to meet up. I'm still very enamored with some of my earlier attempts, but it just wasn't quite right in the client's eyes. Of course, the designer in me couldn't help but love all the little details in my design... but eventually, after 11 revisions, we arrived at bliss for everyone. While not as graphically rich, the final version is both professional and playful.

Again, this was not a case of blindly missed marks, or a client who is hard to please... it was actually an exciting, shared discovery process. I got a great deal out of working closely with the client to reach the solution, and it taught me a boatload about listening to clients better.

At first, I didn't want to take off my designer's hat and listen to them... my first inclination was to assume that my design was SO great that it was beyond them. Of course, true or not, the goal is to please the client and hopefully to walk out on the other side with something you can be proud to have poured your blood, sweat and tears into... and once I gave up my design ego, it became an invigorating process. My phone calls with the client to discuss changes were more about discussing why I made certain decisions than they were about giving me a list of changes, which I would then have to defend.

The video portion of the project took some work to pull together, and in fact, it was originally envisioned as an audio-and-photography Flash piece. Being new to the idea of working with kids, I over-prepared myself, and as it turns out, I was smart to do so.

We had hoped to get all kinds of great audio snippets of the students talking about the school and then turn them into engaging slideshow audio... but I quickly saw that the visuals were what was going to sell people, and while I still ran audio the whole time, I started shooting video of everyone. As the day progressed, we ended up shooting tons of b-roll as well as some unplanned outdoor scenes too.

Once I was able to get a working cut of the footage together, it was obvious that it made an engaging video, but thanks to an unexpected snowstorm the footage was a bit bleak. After some exterior pickup shooting on a sunny day though, and some levels adjustments to the existing footage, we were there... and I think the final product speaks for itself, as it was intended to all along.

www.rohanwoods.org

laBar

laBar is an upscale bar planned to open in the spring of 2011, in the Midtown area of St. Louis. They came to me to create the entire package, from identity to website, and I was thrilled to be a part of it. I always say it, but it's such a treat to work with people who not only appreciate good design, but enjoy seeking it. That made this an incredibly enjoyable process all of the way through.

In creating this identity, the only guideline was that the 'la' should stand out from 'bar', and based on a slick, modern wallpaper I had seen (and envisioned in the bar itself) I started sketching ideas for this petal. I wanted the petal to be very multi-purpose, usable with or without the text, and so I landed on what is basically a square with two opposite rounded corners. The fact that it's a square makes it lend itself well to patterns, and the plan is to work it into the decor of the bar.

Since the bar isn't open yet, the plan was to create a password-protected version of what the website would be like once the bar was open, as a selling tool for investors. Business cards, stationary, and etc have been created as well so that instead of getting an idea on paper, potential investors get to experience everything but the bar itself. Plus, once the bar opens, everything is already finished and ready to go with just an update of content.

As for the mechanics of the site, it was done entirely in Flash, as is common with bars and restaurants, to allow for a feeling of excitement and drama. I also added in this horizontally scrolling content area, which the user can simply click and drag to navigate. Because it works effortlessly, it adds some fun and makes visiting this site a memorable experience. There's also a slick text-as-graphics animated intro movie using the same descriptive 'la' words found in the site's navigation.

Enterprise Rent-A-Car

So, Boston Creative needed someone to produce an animated video for them, and since we had done some Flash work with them before, they came to SteadyRain and I took on the project. BC put together basic conceptual storyboards, and after some extensive conversation about how the typography should look and move, they gave me pretty much creative freedom to "make it happen."

They gave me a list of words that Enterprise wanted showcased in this piece, as well as the theme for the event this would be played at, and so the first thing I did was sit down and record a short song. We knew it needed to be a certain length, so I crafted the song to use as pacing throughout the animation.

Although I created the entire project in Flash, the final version was to play from a DVD, so we had to do the old trial and error export-a-palooza before finally getting the correct resolution, best quality, and properly synced audio. Not sure why, but exporting video from Flash always seems to require experimentation.

Boston Creative

This was a design that was created in-house by Boston Creative and then it came to us at SteadyRain, where I built it as an Interactive Designer for SteadyRain. BC came to us with pretty much all the details designed and then, working closely with them, we worked out all the interactive elements. The general idea was to create an interface that felt smooth and unobtrusive.

Once everything was pretty well thought-out, I went to work animating and actionscripting... I was also responsible for creating a custom score and brief intro animation. Awesome. One of my favorite Flash websites to date.