A Novavax office is more than a workplace. It’s where their mission, their science and their people come together to make a difference in the health of people around the world. To communicate this global commitment, every Novavax office delivers a consistent, instantly recognizable brand experience—from the moment of arrival and continuing around every corner.
The team and I were asked to bring to life - both in the physical and digital space - Novavax’s science-driven mission. We did this by showing the scientific expressions; the vaccine and the formula in an artfully designed system.
We expressed Novavax’s science in offices around the world through environmental design elements such as logo, signage systems, color usage and graphic treatments in the space. Our design system highlights and celebrates Novavax’s brand new identity with a cohesive brand experience across all offices.
We also created a global set of guidelines with a flexible foundation to design a multi-sensory expression of the Novavax brand that elevates both it’s digital presence and onsite experience.
Deliverables:
Global Brand Guidelines
Experience Principles
Wayfinding & Orientation
High-Impact Brand Elements
Duties:
Concepts, design direction and design
The Team:
- Elke Klinkhammer,
Executive Creative Director
- Geovany Sosa,
Creative Director
- Clay Kippen,
Creative Director, Environmental Design
- Lawrence Wolf,
Associate Creative Director
- Omar Mrva,
Associate Design Director
Having the iconic Flatiron Building be home to T-Mobile’s flagship retail store in NYC provides exposure to many passing eyes, including the discerning New Yorkers. We were determined to connect with our fellow NY’ers not with traditional marketing but by connecting with them on a more personal level with selected poems and verses written about NYC by local NYC poets and musicians that enhanced their foot commute as they bustled by.
And knowing NY’ers are always on their way somewhere, a mobile component was created whereby the viewer can scan a QR code and listen to the poems on the go.
Deliverables:
Brand Expression
Digital Activation
Duties:
Concept, art direction and design
The Team:
- Elke Klinkhammer,
Executive Creative Director
- Omar Mrva,
Art Director
NEOU is Always On — anytime, anywhere. NeoU’s goal is to provide affordable access to the highest quality and greatest variety of digital wellness content in the world to everyone who wants to make time for fitness in their lives.
NEOU came to me in need of a complete site refresh and a restructure of their product offerings. I provided design direction, system logic, a usable and accessible components library and page templates on a quarterly basis. With an approach that reflected their mission statement; clean and accessible with no excess, my UI styling refined their visual vocabulary and elevated key products across the board.
Duties: Design direction, art direction and UI design.
The PRS Group Inc. is the world’s leading quant-driven geopolitical and country risk rating, assessment and forecasting firm.
Taking inspiration from the city scapes of international cities, and luxury fashion brands, I created an elevated and sophisticated brand program that is both elegant and modern. The new brand program painted The PRS Group in a class all it’s own and high above it’s competition in the geopolitical risk field.
Deliverables:
Logo & Identity System
Brand Expression
Media Kit
Digital Design
Brochure & Book Design
Duties:
Ideation, creative direction and design
The Muse helps people navigate their entire career journey. They offer expert advice alongside an engaging job search experience.
Served as a Digital Strategy Consultant and partnered with Product, Sales, and Marketing executives to deliver high quality creative concepts and assets. Oversaw brand
visuals and voice ensuring that messaging/positioning was engaging, consistent and aligned with The Muse's values across all touch-points. Led the creation of a visual identity system that represented The Muse's mission and vision. Led the design strategy and developed insights-based creative across campaigns, product launches, and omnichannel marketing materials.
Duties: Design Direction, Design, and UI/UX .
Results: Was the company’s muscle behind best practices that effectively delivered quality creative assets in a high-paced, multi-channel organization.
A collection of Brand Identities and wordmarks for a variety of clients.
An upscale dining cruise sailing from Midtown Manhattan to the Statue of Liberty, serving a four course meal, creative cocktails and the best views of the the New York City skyline.
New York Cruise Lines works with many partner agencies and vendors to produce company wide assets from print and digital to OOH. Hudson’s was a new brand within the NYCL portfolio that hadn’t yet been given any brand guidance. Upon my arrival as Creative Director for NYCL, I quickly institutionalized brand guidelines for Hudson’s to ensure that all parties use consistent brand elements.
Utilizing a mixture of nautical iconography, bold colors and typography with in-house photography we were able to create an original brand program that was simple yet modern. The new brand program elevated Hudson’s presence above it’s competition in the marine dining category.
Duties:
Creative Direction and Design.
The Team:
Omar Mrva,
Creative Director & Design
Phil Schumacher,
Art Director
Achievement: The release of the new branding system provided Hudson’s a unique brand voice in the NYCL portfolio and additionally the process was adopted company wide with partner brands creating full programs of their own.
Member of a multidisciplinary team of experts (strategists, designers, writers and technologists) to help close large, complex deals ($11m+) along with IBM Global Services Executives.
With big business on the line, there is no plan B and IBM knows this. Handing their most important pitches over to creative professionals insured that no detail was overlooked and increased their odds of closing large deals in a short amount of time.
As a valued member of America's Deal Squad, I provided a creative process which allowed IBM executives to communicate complex services to potential customers on the features, advantages and benefits of doing business with IBM Global Services.
Duties: Art direction and design spanned the visual landscape of custom icons, mobile app prototypes (Created the prototype for a new Hertz mobile app), UI design, infographics and editorial layouts.
Win Record: Contributed to winning 70% of new business pitches I was involved with by IBM executives that resulted in over 200+ million in company revenues for calendar year 2016.
New York Cruise Lines, an industry-leading maritime sightseeing, entertainment, dining and transportation company with six brands including the iconic Circle Line.
As New York Cruise Lines’ Creative Director, my responsibilities encompassed Circle Line’s tourism business and maintaining its brand image current with the times. I oversaw full end-to-end capabilities, from strategy and ideation, to design and development.
Leading a team of multidisciplinary designers and art directors, I directed and contributed to all aspects of the brand’s visual communications. Additionally, I collaborated with sales, operations, product and program management to define key objectives for the Circle Line brand and audience. Highlighted here is a wealth of work spanning website and mobile, digital marketing, event advertising ecosystems, visitor’s brochure, logos, merchandise and social media content.
Duties: Creative Direction.
Team:
Caryn Heilman & Phil Schumacher,
art directors
Results: We achieved success by distilling consumer analytics to define targeted email marketing, digital ads, active social media content and continuous online communication, all resulting in lead generation and customer growth for an audience of one million locals and tourists.
Cognizant is a multinational Fortune 500 corporation that provides IT services; including IT infrastructure, information security, digital, technology, consulting and operations services.
Cognizant was in the middle of a new redesign for their global site, their CCO and I - acting as creative lead, identified numerous inconsistencies that had not been taken into consideration during the initial rounds of the new design. The redesign was approached from multiple silos causing an excessive amount of variations in design from one section of the website to another. This greatly decreased brand voice both on an organizational level and departmental level.
Using curated photography, bespoke infographics and branded assets myself and the design team unified the visual language and tone of each department and their services, bridging them together into a holistic presentation of the company to it’s global customers.
After the success of the new site roll out, I was tasked with creating and managing the development of campaign ideas, with particular emphasis on experiential design; event advertising, trade show booth designs and corporate branding for offices around the globe.
Duties: Creative direction, UI/UX design, experiential design and art direction.
Victoria's Secret, known for making world class lingerie extended their brand into sports apparel which needed an identity of it's own to compete with brands like LuLuLemon and Athletica (Gap Family).
VS Sport needed entirely new visual language for the Sport section of the global site, mobile app and print catalogues. As a team, we agreed that an aggressive visual tone for the brand. I was given creative flexibility and arrived at the following aesthetic approaches: bolder typefaces, use of pronounced graphics, larger photo boxes, staggering the grid, incorporating asymmetrical shapes and layering with an overall palette that is muted with small bursts of bright colors taken from the garments themselves resulting in a unique color harmony entirely all it's own. This all contributed to the brand’s ability to command the attention of its ideal customers.
Duties: Concept, art direction and design.
SVP Props: “...and Omar who helped breathe new life and creative projection into our
sport category”
- Lynette Cortez,
SVP Creative Victoria’s Secret
Biz Props: Victoria’s Secret Sport was not guaranteed to be a successful line. Today, Sport is still thriving as a vertical under the Victoria’s Secret brand.
Bringing science to the art of business relationships, RelSci - (Relationship Science) connects top tier business personal with one another and organizations that matter most.
RelSci has developed a sophisticated database of over 2 million public profiles and influential people that uses proprietary service maps; connections among people and organizations in specific categories of commonality to build and improve business relationships.
I worked alongside Arkadia & Co. who developed RelSci's identity and marketing materials to bring this website to fruition based on newly developed brand style guides.
Duties: Art direction, design and production.
Result: A slick new site with a premium feel that sets itself apart from other social media sites in both look and user experience.
Completed at Arkadia & Co.
Victoria’s Secret Angel Card; a customer points program with exclusive benefits available to card holders. To bring awareness to the program, I created an exclusive brand experience that indulges, entertains and deepens the customer engagement with the brand while also driving recurring traffic to it's global website.
I developed a landing page that loosely represents a 30 day calendar that “unlocks” tempting deals and must-see content. This provided the consumer with tools to tell her friends about the exclusive benefits of being an Angel Card member while rewarding her for her participation. I ensured the total experience was branded and easy to understand, yet felt personal and fun.
Duties: Concept, art direction, design and production.
By the Numbers: In just 30 days the campaign increased credit sales +28% over the entire previous year, received increase of +25% new applicants over the entire previous year and saw a +29% increase in new opened accounts over the entire previous year.
Ultrafabrics® is a pioneer in the polyurethane synthetic leather industry. The company adopted a ‘Mobile First’ design approach which included ground-up creation of their mobile site to better reflect the depth and breadth of their product offering which competes in nine global markets.
Bringing products to life in mobile required a deep understanding of the core-customer needs and purchase patterns. Through various hypothesis, usability tests, and design iterations a new mobile experience was adopted. Additional usability and task-based testing uncovered that a handful of changes needed to happen and left the project’s primary goal accomplished.
Using their fabric swatches as inspiration, a tight square grid organized their service and product offerings into a clean and effective user experience.
Duties: Art direction, visual design,
UX and UI design.
Designer Love: Post-project feedback surveys and interviews of existing users (of the previous design) resulted in a 92.7% approval and satisfaction rate.
Completed at Arkadia & Co.
Victoria’s Secret’s Swim line needed a design refresh of their digital communications as they began to launch their 2015 Swim Collection.
Building on previous success within the company, I was given creative flexibility with design direction. A new catalogue of sales-focused emails were inspired by handwritten script. This decision kept the visual aesthetic fluid and organic that set the tone for the majority of the creative. Layered photos fused to one another leveraging scenery shots as atmospheric textures along with graphic thick borders to create a dynamic visual experience.
It was critical that the designs/sections of email properly rendered on all significant devices, browsers and operating systems, so the goals of each email campaign would perform as intended. In the end, each email in the catalogue was strong enough to stand on its own and when brought together addressed several sales, promotional, new product spotlights and other critical company offerings.
Duties: Concept, art direction and design.
Designer Love: The design set a new approach for future email stylings sent from the Victoria’s Secret brand.
Team Props: Company leadership was “very pleased” with email program's performance that was designed for VS Swim.
Combining technology and media is what The Daily set out to do. Rupert Murdoch's digital newspaper, the first news publication created and designed specifically for the iPad. The Daily required a flexible, yet engaging tablet (iPad) UI design which would allow it to deliver content to its subscriber base.
Information Architecture was at the forefront of the pre-design work. An understanding of the typical article length, specs on the ad space being sold, and account for other content that was in their pipeline.
Taking the brand’s goals coupled with technical marvels and market positioning, my team set out to create a catalogue of templates to meet the various section fronts, feature wells and interactive modules. As soon as we had a strong initial sketch, we quickly developed a low-fidelity prototype to test it. Once it passed, it moved to a hi-fidelity one and was tested on different iPad screen versions for precision rendering.
Duties: Concept, art direction, production and design.
Designer Props: Set up the template that would eventually guide the permanent team to design.
