4 Firms

1. Outside of the US

LG2 (Montreal & Quebec)

Significant Designers:

Claude Auchu (VP, Creative Director, Design)

Marc Fortin (VP, Creative Director)

Luc Du Sault (VP, Creative Director)

Marilou Aubin (Interactive Creative Director)

Significant Projects & Clients:

Allegra: Wild Posting (3D poster ads depicting a man blowing his nose using a part of the poster)

Paris Grill

L'echaude

Stylistic & Strategic Approach

"Think Like a Brand, Act Like a Retailer" 

Long term client relationships

I've always wanted to visit Canada. What if it's a cool place to work? I bring multidisciplinary talent with experience working in a large ad agency. Might have to learn a bit of french…

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Outside of KC

Chaotic Moon Studios (Austin, TX)

Significant Designers:

Having trouble finding names outside of Executives

Significant Projects & Clients:

Marvel Comics Library App: Users can browse over 10,000 archived comics

Fox

Disney

Pizza Hut App "resurrection"

Stylistic & Strategic Approach

Lots of clients in entertainment business, bold designs. Digital & Interactive. Seems like a great, fun culture… the site is written in a really confident, laid back and funny tone.

Really like the way they present their work and their site, seems like a "hip" place. I would fit in well because I have a similar style in my work and love incorporating humor into my pieces. Once again, I bring a young, bold perspective and some experience working with big clients within a big agency.

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In KC

Diamond Merckens Hogan

Significant Designers:

Paul Diamond & Brian Merckens (Founders & CD's)

Plenty of fellow KU grads

Significant Projects & Clients:

Las Vegas Sands Corp, branding and corporate image. Heavy photography.

ZuPreem E-commerce: Freshened brand… has a different character than a lot of e-commerce websites.

Stylistic & Strategic Approach: 

Really interested in PROBLEM SOLVING… not caught up with decoration, trends… ego. Tight knit

I've only heard great things about them and had a meeting with Paul and Brian about a month ago and was blown away with how down to earth they were. I bring a willingness to learn and plenty of versatility (design, illustration, connecting) as well as experience within KC advertising.

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Anywhere

Grain & Mortar (Omaha, NE)

Significant Designers: 

Eric Downs: CD

Mike DeKay: CD

Miranda Bouck: Designer

Jesse Harding: Designer

Thats it. Really small. Awesome website… great attention to detail, great hand-drawn elements with vector. Lots of traditional methods. Grassroots, blue-collar company

Stylistic & Strategic Approach:

They're really about CHARACTER… honesty, hard work and trust. They are really illustration heavy and colorful

Significant Projects & Clients:

Barcamp Omaha 2012 (Apparel, Identity, Motion, Print, Web)

Creighton University College of Business (Brand Book, Identity, Print, Web)

Omaha Bikes (Website… Awesome huge hero illustration on homepage)

Found about this little team in Omaha today and love it. Illustration is in everything they do and I love to incorporate illustration wherever I can. My parents are from Nebraska so I get the whole midwest thing. Really interested in working in a small studio. I would be a great fit because of my keen attention to detail and illustration talents. I like how they're really focused on their philosophy and focused on themselves and embracing their identity.


Anyway, I want to keep researching firms and ESPN The Magazine in particular. I want to find a sports place. Had more fun than I thought I would looking up firms and work.

GRANDSTAND: A Fantasy Football Dashboard

Here's my progress so far on the web version

Starting with moodboards and inspiration:

We mentioned how it should be modern and sleek, not chunky. I think these are some good examples of some really clean design (nice dark backgrounds as well).

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SKETCHING: User experience, etc.

The website has four main pieces, broken down into columns in the sketches above:

1) My Fantasy — your fantasy dashboard where you can view and control any of your separate fantasy leagues.

2) Schedule — displays the NFL schedule and rankings throughout the season

3) Insider — all the information you'll need to know about player rumors, analysis, and feature stories

4) Stats — This is where you'll do statistical research on players you might be interested in adding to your team. Depth charts, rankings, the effects certain matchups can have on a fantasy player, and projections. Maybe a record book of some sort.

I'm thinking each section will have 4-5 screens. I know this is a TON of work, but I'm pretty passionate about this stuff and could have some fun really going in depth with this.

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Detailed Sketches: "My Fantasy" section 

The league's homepage displaying rankings on the left with stats going in the columns, a scoreboard showing the current matchups and scores, and a discussion panel at the bottom right showing transactions and comments within your league (maybe social can be implemented here... it's basically like a twitter feed anyway)

This sketch has some comments in blue that point out the structure of the website. This screen is for the "Matchups" tab within "My Fantasy"

The "My Team" tab within "My Fantasy", displaying a more visual interface for your team. You can change the team (the My Team tab drops down -- highlighted in blue) to view someone else's team.

This could possibly scroll down and show more infographics related to that team and their results.

It will be laid out similar to this graphic from my old project: The user can set his lineup by dragging players around or by substituting a bench player from the inside of the circle.

DESIGN PROGRESS:

Here's a quick glance at how these could be treated

Grid overlay

My Fantasy > Matchup

Schedule > 2013 > Regular Season

Insider and Stats: nothing on these yet, but this shows the color scheme (the four pieces of the main NAV at the very top are different colors)