Cycle Garden is a small garage in Indio, CA, that services and does restorations of pre-1975 Moto Guzzi motorcycles. They also sell parts online, but it took me over 10 minutes to figure out how to find one and purchase it—making it a prime candidate for our class’s second project, which was to find (and fix) an e-commerce website with functionality issues.
TASK ANALYSIS
I tapped three of my motorcycling friends to pretend to purchase a clutch lever on the Cycle Garden site; all of them experienced the same confusion and frustration that I did, with two of them ultimately—and independently—opening up new browser windows in exasperation to show me how their favorite parts site was so much better.
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS, CARD SORTING
I performed a competitive analysis of the three largest online Moto Guzzi parts sites, and found that each one used a completely different navigational hierarchy from each other to get you to a particular part(!). I then asked the same friends to perform an open card sort to see how they would categorize the parts of a motorcycle. There was no agreement there, either, so I went with the solution from the one who had the most experience servicing bikes to use in my redesign.
PERSONAS, PROBLEM STATEMENTS
Based on interviews I did with my friends, I created 2 different personas and problem statements, each reflecting real-life issues for typical Moto Guzzi owners.
WIREFRAMES, USABILITY TESTING
I created low-fidelity wireframes for two different task flows, prototyped them, and then ran a usability test on my friends. While they each pointed out aspects of the design that they felt could be refined—as well as those that worked—they all agreed that my redesign was far easier to use.
RESPONSIVE DESIGN, DEVELOPER PREP
The next step was to create 5 high-fidelity desktop screen comps with their corresponding mobile screens, incorporating revisions derived from the wireframe usability test. Along with responsive design, the priority for this step was preparing our Sketch file to hand off to a developer by making extensive use of symbols and text styles, limiting ourselves to 3–5 typefaces, optimizing any placed images, and creating a Zeplin stylesheet.
DESIGN
While the only design cues I took from the existing site was using Futura exclusively on every screen but the home screen, the visual framework of the site was inspired by the parts tables from the original manuals that came with the vintage bikes that Cycle Garden services, along with some hints of the Moto Guzzi brand.
My primary goal with this class project was to improve the navigation of the current Cycle Garden website. I also hoped to create a more polished design for the site, since it seems like they do really good work there. I’m not sure whether Moe would agree or not, but everyone else who’s seen it thinks I did.
Regional POS program evoking the heritage of Texas ice houses, the forerunner of today's convenience stores. The lineup included several unique pieces, such as a solid wood display backdrop (which won POPAI's Best of Industry Semi-Permanent Gold Award), neon sign, a faux cast-metal plaque, a lighted wooden wall sign, music CD, as well as the usual paper pieces. (Type and bottle Illustration by the inimitable Tom Nikosey.)
2005 | ART DIRECTOR
JBS asked Stack for a social media campaign to dispel long-held misconceptions about cooking pork and provide fun, sharable recipes and cooking tips. We created posts for Facebook, Pinterest and the Good Nature website. These Pinterest posts are a few of the iterations I concepted, designed and executed in this successful, ongoing campaign.
2017–19 | Art Director
This Texas test-market POS, outdoor and on-premise lineup was so successful that it was used for the national roll out 1 year later. Elements included display cards, floor graphics, cooler door decals, vertical banners, floor displays, outdoor boards (including teasers), coasters, and custom on-premise and c-store displays.
2004 | ART DIRECTOR
The launch of Gillette's biggest shaving innovation in 5 years was the largest single program I've ever been a part of. Not just because of the size of the lineup, which was substantial, but because we spent about 18 months putting it all together. (The primary floorstand alone went through over 30 rounds of revisions.)
I was an associate creative director on this account, so I can't take credit (or blame) for the overall look of the launch, but I include it because I was a key team player in coordinating the workflow and keeping the team motivated over an oftentimes grueling year and a half. I did design and lay out the tri-fold brochure (shown).
All the hard work did eventually pay off. While I can't quote exact sales figures, it was considered a huge success and POPAI gave it a silver award for Retail Marketing & Communications Campaign.
2010 | ASSOC. CREATIVE DIRECTOR, ART DIRECTOR
One of MillerCoors' most important on-premise accounts is Buffalo Wild Wings, so we created many seasonal programs that, for legal reasons I have to say, could be used by them. The assignments that were the most fun to work on included two back-of-the-house promotions. The first is the mystery shopper program where waitstaff could be rewarded if 'caught' performing their job well. Shown is the 2011 poster as well as a proposed concept for 2012 that wasn't chosen, but should have been.
The other non-consumer-facing program that was the most satisfying to create was one that encouraged employees to become better-educated advocates for draft beer. I took advantage of the similarity in color of one of MillerCoors liquid hero shots and B-Dubs' gold brand color to create the seemingly-obvious key visual for the program.
2011-2014 | ART DIRECTOR