The Project:
• This past summer, I was approached by a Phoenix-based creative agency to research the feasibility of virtual reality content for their existing clients, vet potential strategic partners and contractors, and then present opportunities for incorporating virtual reality into their existing workload.
The Scope:
• Research virtual reality concepts, terms, and processes and deliver them in a report for the agency's on-going use.
• Vet potential partners and contractors for the agency to use when creating virtual reality content.
• Deliver ideas and concepts on using virtual reality with their clients.
The Results:
• A presentation and report were delivered to the agency (Fall 2016). They plan to implement the processes and concepts in early 2017.
Fun fact: in the spirit of 3D visualization, we implemented several 2D anaglyphic images throughout the report that could be viewed using tradition red/cyan paper glasses.
In the summer of 2016, I had the opportunity to collaborate on a consulting project with my talented friend Ryan Miller. Together, we worked on an exploratory research report and strategic plan for the wonderful women's online community, Blessed Is She.
The Project:
• in 2015 and early 2016, Blessed is She saw incredible growth as an online community and movement for women. Faced with the challenge of quick growth, Blessed is She leadership was looking for opportunities to expand their offerings and increase engagement for their users.
The Scope:
• Research current user social engagement, sales patterns, and infrastructure to determine new opportunities and areas for growth.
• Develop a tiered business solution and suggest a roll out strategy for Blessed is She "version 2.0" in 2017.
• Produce an exploratory research brief and business strategy for the leadership of Blessed is She to consider as they continue to grow and progress as a company.
The Results:
• A presentation and report were delivered to Blessed is She (Summer 2016) and certain aspects of the strategy were quickly implemented.
• Blessed is She has continued to see incredible growth - including the ability to expand their online services, retail products, and social reach.
• Gross income has seen a 300% increase in the past 6 months.
Bene Plates provides nutrition programs to the sick and homebound as well as healthy, delivery-ready food for people on the go.
The Project:
• Create an identity and startup campaign that communicates Bene Plates’ mission and services to prospective clients.
The Scope:
• Develop branding and design elements that are multimedia ready (print, digital, web)
• Create a visual identity that attracts multiple demographics (young professionals, retirees, cancer patients)
• Collaborate with the client to support an existing startup campaign (call-to-action graphics, marketing materials, social media content)
The Results:
• The visual identity is a driving force in establishing Bene Plates as a leading food and nutrition company in the cancer treatment community
• Versatility in the brand’s visual elements provides seamless integration across print, packaging, media, and web platforms
• The creation of brand guidelines has provides instructions for future usage and implementation of all visual elements.
In 2015, I explored low poly design and created several 3D environments both personally and as commissioned artwork.
The low poly collection includes:
• Alaskan Summer – a personal project exploring the visual concept of tiny, snow globe style environments.
• Life Aquatic – a personal project exploring underwater elements and environment (haze, backgrounds, light sources above the surface).
• A Boy's Heroes – commissioned work for a young boy who loved Ironman, the Hulk, and Thor.
• Emily’s Kingdom – commissioned work for a little girl who desires to be a princess in her very own castle.
• Sweetest Dreams – a gift for an elephant themed nursery.
Me, the People Apparel (MTP) is an on-going conceptual venture of NickWork. MTP explores the intersection between personal socio-political action and public messaging and movements through fashion.
2015’s apparel lines were mostly divisive by nature; brief artistic studies of the current political and social climate of the country. As 2016 wore on and political fervor became more heated, MTP was left to concept as to not create more divisiveness or discord.
The Concept Lines:
• Divided States of America – a line dedicated to the personal defense of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
• Anti-Heroes – the representation of America's flawed leaders and their legacies.
• MTP – a branded line celebrating the apparel company's vision and future.
There is an on-going desire to officially launch Me, the People Apparel, but with current instability and distress, we feel it prudent to postpone. We will watch closely as the year turns and our new President is inaugurated before deciding on a launch date. In the meantime, stay tuned to new conceptual designs on our Instagram.
Jerry Kramer is an NFL legend. As a Green Bay Packer, Jerry is a 5-Time World Champion, 2-Time Super Bowl Winner (Super Bowl 1 & 2), and member of the All-Madden 50th Anniversary Team. For whatever reason, Jerry has been denied from induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame for several decades. I had the privilege of working with Jerry’s team to reinvigorate his bid for the Hall of Fame.
The Project:
• In a perennial effort to gain support and promote Jerry’s bid for the Hall of Fame, Jerry’s management team requested help in reimagining his personal website, online store, and interaction with his fans.
The Scope:
• Reinvigorate Jerry’s website and online store through design and content restructuring.
• Provide a framework that allowed Jerry’s team to update the site and online store as needed.
• Implement inventory and order tracking to assist Jerry’s team in better handling orders and customer service.
• Integrate social media feeds and posting capabilities between his website and Facebook/Twitter.
The Results:
• As of Spring 2016, JerryKramer.com has seen an increase in monthly traffic of over 2500% over the past year.
• Online purchases have increased by nearly 500%.
• Social media integration has allowed for seamless interaction with his fans and followers increasing his presence and overall engagement in his bid for the Hall of Fame.
Visit: JerryKramer.com
Provision Coffee is an Arizona based coffee company. The company mission to, “build community through quality coffee,” extends to all areas of their business – as a roaster, wholesale supplier, and retail shop.
The Project:
• Refresh an existing brand schema to fulfill the needs of Provision's strategic partners.
The Scope:
• Provision Coffee's existing logo was a handwritten, non-vector based logo that was causing issues in print and development. They required a more readable typemark than the existing handwritten logo.
• The existing identity needed to be updated to reflect a more comprehensive and corporate style for use with Provision Coffee’s strategic partners.
• Suggest new print design for bag packaging and retail materials.
The Results:
• The brand refresh provided the necessary inroads with New York Times best selling author Bob Goff allowing for the birth of Love Does Coffee – a product in the Love Does store.
• The new visual elements allowed Provision Coffee founders the opportunity to update their products and create a cohesive retail experience for customers.
• New packaging solidified Provision Coffee’s brand in the retail and wholesale coffee markets around the Southwest creating greater brand equity and recognition.
GlobalMed’s mission is to transform healthcare delivery systems that improve access and quality of care for patients in remote areas. GlobalMed's products and services are regularly exhibited at industry conferences around the country each year.
The Project:
• Develop a flagship event booth for GlobalMed’s multiple industry appearances each year.
• Provide multiple rendering angles to the client for review and approval.
The Scope:
• The booth area needed to accommodate presentations to customers and meetings with industry vendors at the same time.
• The booth must be dismantled and transported around the country with ease.
• Print and digital content and signage development needed for incorporation into all areas of the booth.
The Results:
• Digital content, presentations, and common meeting areas, provide an attractive and immersive experience for staff, customers, and vendors.
• Design strategy allows for almost all of the booth structure to be rented in each event city.
• Utilizing tablets and video screens, virtually all content and signage is editable and adaptive by the minute allowing for updates to the booth on an on-going basis.
Fairytaled Parties has become one of Atlanta’s premiere event and character party companies. Created by a mother and son team in early 2014, Fairytaled Parties continues to grow each year.
The Project:
• Establish a web and social media presence to provide information about Fairytaled Parties services, highlight their actors and actresses, and validate their safety measures when protecting their client’s children.
The Scope:
• Create a dual color scheme that supports both male and female characters and their coinciding party themes.
• Define Fairytaled Parties business, services, and event themes to site visitors.
• Validate Fairytaled Parties as a business intent on providing fun, yet safe party environments for their guests.
The Results:
• Fairytaled Parties has seen growth year over year due in large part to leads gained through the website.
• Image heavy pages and character galleries gives Fairytaled Parties the ability to sell their characters and parties to event venues throughout the city.
• The responsive web design has proven invaluable to parents on the go and allows Fairytaled Parties clients to seamlessly transition to their social media pages.
The Eight Digital Design concept was created in 2014 under the NickWork umbrella as a corporate events and entertainment solution.
The Project:
• Establish a brand system and website that explains Eight Digital Design’s consulting services and represents creative prowess.
The Scope:
• Develop a branding system that communicates Eight Digital’s purpose of providing creative consulting and content creation for both large-scale events and smaller, more intimate settings.
• Establish a brand and visual content that communicates the breadth and width of possibilities to Eight Digital's new clients.
• Build an informational and marketing website for sales and business development.
• Highlight previous and existing consulting and creative work.
The Results:
• Ultimately, the concept and subsequent services were absorbed into Missing Link Design Services later that year.
The rhino sculpture was a proof of concept for a new area of opportunity in our business. As the world turns more and more to 3D modeling and printing, we hoped to use new school technology to create in a more old school medium.
The sculpture requires many different tools – both analog and digital - and many design disciplines to create the final product. Utilizing digital 3D models and 2D stacking software, the sculpture was produced through a time-intensive process of cutting and joining.
An animal bust seemed a perfect form for this proof of concept: an organic form that can withstand form edits without losing its recognizability.
The rhino sculpture was a 2015 conceptual project, but we have plans to expand upon the animal bust line in 2017. For updates and new project photos, check out the Instagram page for Voronoi (VRNI) Lab.
On the heels of a successful launch of Jerry Kramer’s website, his management team and I agreed to create an exclusive apparel and merchandising brand for Jerry and his history as a Green Bay Packer legend.
The Project:
• Develop exclusive apparel and merchandise for Jerry’s personal brand and his Pro Football Hall of Fame bid.
The Scope:
• Develop a line of apparel and merchandise specifically for Jerry Kramer and his legacy as a historic football player.
• Increase Jerry’s exposure through quality designs and products.
• Remind the public of his accomplishments and storied past as a player and public figure.
The Results:
• The new apparel increased sales from only 2 or 3 items per day to over 10-12 items per day.
• Online exposure and discussion regarding Jerry’s bid for the Hall of Fame increased three-fold.
• Within the first month, proof of concepts became viable products with hundreds of sales allowing for increased efforts and development in designing new and more varied products.
Over the past several years I’ve worked with great teams of people developing event concepts and identities for Fortune 500 companies. As the prominence and importance of corporate events increases, so does the need for an impactful event identity. In the past, this may have been limited to the on-stage presentations, printed materials, and participant badges, but today event identities extend to areas like: pre/post event marketing, social media, experience-driven booths, RFID, location-specific branding, and visual installations.
1265 Apparel existed specifically as an ecommerce store providing fans of Jerry Kramer and the Green Bay Packers custom apparel and merchandise via a print-on-demand service.
The Project:
• In order to sell 1265 Apparel online and maintain a profit margin, a platform that provided consistent quality and automated fulfillment was needed
The Scope:
• Develop an intuitive shopping experience
• Provide a way to integrate fully automated printing and fulfillment
• Alleviate the need for a large amount of inventoried products
• Establish a system for introducing new apparel and merchandise quickly and efficiently
The Results:
• Creation of an immediate and consistent daily revenue stream
• Development of expanded apparel and merchandising opportunities for richer engagement of Jerry Kramer’s fans and followers
• Provided an interesting and unique opportunity for marketing Jerry’s personal brand through products in addition to his more traditional methods (appearances and events)
Glide Path Financial was an Arizona-based, individual financial advisement startup founded 2014.
The Project:
• The founder had a core understanding of his target demographic, but needed help launching his brand, online presence, and marketing strategies.
The Scope:
• Develop brand messaging and a visual identity to establish Glide Path Financial in the Arizona financial marketplace.
• Create a visual identity that attracts dual demographics (young professionals and retirees).
• Collaborate with the client to create presentation materials for social security presentations and seminars.
The Results:
• Glide Path’s initial brand campaign successfully reached each of the target demographics.
• Within two weeks, interest from the initial messaging and social media campaign created enough appointments to fill the company’s schedule for their first 90 days.
• The presentation materials allowed the founder and his team to immediately schedule seminars that created revenue opportunities within the first 30 days of opening their doors.
I had the opportunity to work with the car rental facility of Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport and Pepsi to imagine a remodel and marketing campaign for the facility’s in-house café.
The request was to take the existing café space, build outs, and architectural elements and reimagine them skinned with Pepsi illustrations and graphics. We also looked at the idea of changing the seating system and point of sale area in consideration of foot traffic and customer interactions.
Over the years, Missing Link Design Services has provided promotional posters for events, music tours, and improv comedy troupes. Depending on the need of the client or artist, different styles of graphic or photographic posters were designed.
In 2015, we experimented with new mediums and inspirations. One of those experiments was the creative exploration of graphically representing classic movie lines on the medium of a t-shirt. Taking inspiration from such movies as La Bamba, Stand by Me, and Spaceballs, we conceptualized what some of the well-known moments from those movies may look like as graphic t-shirts.
In addition to the shirt concepts, a brand and social media campaign were created to extend the concept beyond a single instance. Although we had great feedback about the concepts and styles, we ultimately chose to let the project exist solely as an experiment.
Encore Creative is a special events design and supply company from the Phoenix area. From 2013 to 2014, Nick oversaw the newly formed design and web departments.
The Project:
• The first large project the design team was tasked with was a redesign of the company’s outdated and non-functioning website. In relation to standards and trends, Encore’s site struggled to engage users and work across all browsers and devices. In terms of structure, Encore’s previous website lacked cohesion and clarity when explaining their services, capabilities, and products. The site also desperately needed better social media integration to provide paths between event posts and customer inquiries.
The Scope:
• Reinvigorate Encore’s web presence and provide more opportunities for user engagement.
• Reimagine the user experience with consideration for mobile use and social media integration.
• Restructure site content allowing for better information storage and transfer.
The Results:
• Site traffic saw an increase of 250% in the first 90 days. Site traffic analysis showed success in driving users to specific content and call-to-actions.
• Encore’s social following increased 100% in the first 90 days and became a viable sales tool for the first time.
• Proper database structure and project planning allowed all event rentals, services, and previous projects to be cross-referenced and tagged across the entire event portfolio. This simple, but time consuming step increased user’s visit duration from 3 pages to 11 pages in the first 30 days.
Project
I had the honor of designing an upscale pie box for Jeff Kraus, owner and chef of Crepe Bar in Tempe, AZ. Every year he competes in the Phoenix New Times Pie Social, a charitable event showcasing some of the best local chefs and bakers innovative and delicious new pie creations.
Wanting to impress the judges with both flavor and presentation, Jeff was working on a pie that would be served warm, but would also feature cold elements. He commissioned a design concept that could handle both hot and cold sources in the same vessel. After great collaboration we came up with a concept that used removable drawers with hidden heat/cold storage. The box design was inspired by Crepe Bar’s interior design and aesthetic.
Result
After several more meetings and testing opportunities, we ultimately went with a stripped down, smaller version of the box concept. Jeff's pie didn't win best overall, but he did win for 'Best Overall Presentation'! (I like to believe the box had a small part in that)
From 2009 to 2012, I was a creative/production consultant for the Scoreboard Productions department of the Arizona Cardinals Football Club at University of Phoenix Stadium. The department was not only responsible for game presentation, but also for over 150 events in and around the stadium each year.
The Project:
• Planning for multiple concurrent events in a large stadium is quite the undertaking. Mapping out logistics and managing all of the moving parts was challenging enough, but designing an event experience and obtaining approval from an out-of-town client was especially difficult.
The solution was to provide the production staff with 3D modeling and event management software that could visualize the event design (staging, lighting, seating, etc.), and then assign staffing and assets to each specific event.
The Scope:
• Create to-scale 3D models of the interior/exterior event spaces surrounding the stadium and import them into event management software (Vivien).
• Capture, document and archive building surfaces and location-specific imagery for mapping realistic textures to the event models and spaces.
• Create an asset management and staffing solution that integrated with the event management software's capabilities.
The Results:
• Creation of to-scale spaces allowed for event planners to accurately map out stage sizes, seating charts, cable runs, and lighting design. These finished designs created a seamless editing and approval process with clients.
• Surface texturing and imagery in all event spaces provided both staff and clients with confidence in how/where to setup for events without further management or direction.
• Integrated asset management and staffing of department gear and event personnel allowed for accurate event budgeting and time estimation.
Related:
An Interview with Nick Heller - Vivien Becomes a Key Player for Football Stadium Venue
Sports Equipment Asset Management: Arizona Cardinals – Wasp Barcode
A few years ago, a good friend of mine lost his wife Angela to cancer. The story of their journey as a couple and family was emotional and profound. Chris – a writer and speaker – decided to share that story with the world. It Is Well: Life in the Storm is the account of their life together, journey through the difficult times, and life after her passing.
It was a great pleasure to work with him on the cover and interior design. After much thought and collaboration, we decided that the best way to reflect the story of the book was to reflect the story of their lives through their Instagram posts.
My goal as a designer is to invest in my clients’ and their projects in a way that reflects their passion for their work. In this particular case, it was about honoring Angela’s life and the story that Chris wanted to tell. Even though it was one of the least “involved” projects of my career, it still is one of the most important projects I’ve had the opportunity to be a part of.
Related: It Is Well: Life in the Storm
Cocktails and bartending culture are a personal passion of mine. I started drinking old fashioneds with my grandparents a decade ago and my love for high-end spirits has grown ever since. Recently, I've started exploring the aesthetic of low poly modeling in 3D design.
I searched for cocktail-inspired art and was surprised to find a lack of available pieces. As a result, I thought I would explore the intersection of cocktailing and low poly design. I started with a few of the classics and hope to expand on the collection soon.
In 2014, I collaborated on two vehicle wraps with a custom automotive company – Imagi Motive. The first was a mobile pregnancy center for a Knoxville based non-profit and the second was a client’s Houston Texans tailgating RV.
