-
After launching an entirely new design in March 2009, the MICA web team received feedback suggesting that an alternative to the slideshow gallery view was needed for quickly navigating through galleries, especially large galleries. I designed and developed a new template in XSLT to give users easy previews of many images at once, which is vastly different from the more linear time-based experience of viewing the slideshow. The related galleries list in the lower right-hand side of the page is generated with XSLT that looks at the images in the current gallery and checks what other galleries those images are in, so if an artwork is in the painting gallery but is also in 2 exhibition galleries, those 2 exhibition galleries will be listed as related galleries on the painting gallery.
-
I designed and developed the online portfolio of photographer Keely Kernan. One of the primary requirements for the site was a backend that Keely could use to manage the site’s content herself, so I set up the site using CMS Made Simple, a lightweight content management solution that wouldn’t be weighed down with functionality Keely didn’t need. In addition to the design, CSS, XHTML, and CMS setup, I also wrote Keely custom documentation that walked her through the process of editing the site in CMS Made Simple. Since the site launched in 2008, Keely has managed its content herself, successfully updating it with her own text and images.
-
I created branding standards for MICA’s Twitter presence, assisted in developing an institutional Twitter policy, and managed Twitter followers for MICA’s primary Twitter account, MICA_News. Since the MICA_News Twitter account’s first tweet in late May 2009 it has gained over 1700 followers, the highest number of followers among colleges in the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design (AICAD). Twitter is among MICA.edu’s highest ranked referring domains, often sending 100+ hits to MICA.edu per week.
-
This is an internal website for the MICA community. View design flats: 1, 2, 3
The goal for MyMICA’s visual design is to make a companion “look” that communicates to users that they are in an internal website but it is still all part of the same MICA.edu. MyMICA extends the style of MICA.edu’s Happy Cog designs into the entirely new functional requirements of a learning management system and a social networking engine. The screencaps seen here show how the branding has been applied to a beta of Moodle, an open-source learning management system.
-
I designed and built the XSLT template for MICA’s Page Not Found. Its site map enables users to scan for the content they seek through 1 or 2 levels of the site’s information architecture depending on the structure of the section. The site map is dynamically generated, so when pages are added or subtracted from the site the Page Not Found is automatically revised to match the current structure. I also created the illustration used at the top to add a bit of fun and visual interest; I think it’s important to make that extra effort to get users to stay on the site even though they’ve hit a wall.
-
The search results template for MICA presents information to the user in as intuitive a format as possible, drawing upon design conventions established by major search engines to organize where each type of information is shown. The template is extra flexible to accommodate the various different scenarios that arise from a search engine query: no results, so many results pagination is required, a “did you mean?” function, and hand-picked featured search results for certain queries. A brief list of quick links to MICA’s top searched content provides an extra path for the many users looking for the pages listed.
-
I created flyers to advertise artist talks happening at ceramics non-profit Baltimore Clayworks. The flyers integrate the layout of type with a photo of either the artwork or the artist.
-
The membership card design for Baltimore Clayworks had to fit a lot of information in a small space but still look crisp and legible. The front image of a member artist’s work is cropped to a detail view to maximize the impact of the artwork while still maintaining a sense of spaciousness in the design.
-
This postcard was mailed to MICA’s prospective students to alert them to the College’s new studio concentration in curatorial studies. I used multiple images on this postcard front to communicate the complexity of curating; curators often address everything from the detailed layout of an exhibition in the space to the creation of an event schedule surrounding the exhibition and its participants.
-
This postcard serves as a marketing tool for the artwork of Melissa Diaz. I worked diligently in Adobe Photoshop to refine the artwork photo she provided for the front and ensured that all of her contact information was easy to reference on the back of the card.
-
This schedule quickly and effectively communicates workshop details but also gets across the fun of community arts for kids. The combination of creatively edited photography and bright colors helps offset the austere qualities of Univers Extra Condensed, a font that composes a significant part of Baltimore Clayworks’ visual identity.
-
This flyer is geared toward current MICA students in need of housing during the summer. MICA provided a beautiful photo of Meyerhoff House, a historic residence hall on MICA’s campus.
-
Beer Valley Brewing Company commissioned this illustration for their Gone Fishin Mild Ale label. The fish is a rainbow trout, one of the types of fish found in the Snake River near the brewery.
-
Creating this theme allowed me to experiment more with the use of illustration within a web user interface. I made the header illustration from scratch and geared everything about its composition toward the fixed specifications of iGoogle. The resulting image is a centered, first-person perspective, with the shoreline positioned inline with the Google search box.
-
I created this spoof of a MICA ID card for a MICA Student Accounts mailing announcing new online access to the spending accounts accessible on MICA ID cards. The ID card gets to the bottom line of what the students care about, that this makes their ID card more convenient for them to use as a form of currency. Besides, who doesn’t love a narwhal?
-
I made this for MICA’s Page Not Found to add something endearing and lighthearted to a page users might be frustrated to see. The illustration features two very different creatures, a robot and a stegosaurus-like dinosaur, trying to find their way with a map.
-
This was a really open-ended assignment that I took as an opportunity to experiment with type doubling as image. I built all the lettering from scratch in Adobe Illustrator.
-
I illustrated and designed a series of three postcards for MICA Student Accounts to send to students before the beginning of the semester as a reminder about upcoming billing-related deadlines. It might be impossible to make a student actually want to see a billing reminder but nevertheless I try to make these postcards as fun as possible.
Junior Designer for Web and Print
Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, 08/2008 – 12/2009
Participated in: web design; content management for thousands of pages; development of social network presences; refinement of information architecture; development in XHTML, CSS, XSLT, XML, ColdFusion, PHP, and JavaScript; creation of long-range plans for MICA.edu.
Freelance Designer
Various clients, 06/2005 – present
Often responsible for every stage of a project. Designed for both web and print. Expanded and updated branding for new applications. Worked independently and within teams both small and large. Clients include Baltimore Clayworks, Beer Valley Brewing Company, Lupus Mid-Atlantic, and the Pimlico Road Youth Program, as well as individual artists.
