Claire Tansey’s Kitchen

2016

It was a treat to work with talented chef, writer, and Food Director Claire Tansey to establish her online brand by way of a site dedicated to her food & industry articles, videos, recipes, and social media streams. It was a bit of a torture coming up on mealtimes — all those beautiful food photos are just a tease to a hungry developer.

The site is fully responsive, and has multiple points at which the design changes dynamically for optimal use on mobile and tablet, or even different browser window sizes for desktop users.

With the help of some great design work by Petra Cuschieri (notably the great brand nameplate, above), I built this site on the popular WordPress platform, handling everything from account setup and securing the domain, to installing, configuring, and customizing the site features and design to suit the client’s needs.

A Word in the Woods branding

2016

Original branding for A Word in the Woods, my personal line of handcrafted leather goods. The mark links my love of the outdoors to the written word (mirroring the theme established by the name itself), with a fountain pen and tree motif. The pen is also reminiscent of a flame, a source of life for humans in a survival or primitive natural setting.

For more about my leatherwork itself, please visit my shop at shop.awordinthewoods.com or see this article about my process.

House & Home redesign

2015

I was brought in to House & Home in 2008 to spearhead the initial full site redesign and development.

Many months of research and working with in-house and external designers, as well as revisions and approvals from multiple stakeholders went into the initial design and the subsequent homepage revisions. In additions to building the department structure, I evaluated and hired appropriate designers and developers. Every aspect was freshly examined, including a new IA, content rollout and strategy, and a move to the Drupal CMS.

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House & Home Media Kit

2015

An update to the printed media kit traditionally used by sales teams, this digital version provided an opportunity to rebrand and consolidate the look and feel across multiple pieces.

The web resource would allow clients to log in, view information and statistics, and enable sales associates to track interested prospective advertisers.

Homesense What’s your Style

2014

A bold, client-branded ongoing campaign, with planned refreshes throughout multiple years, this prime example of a multi-faceted campaign comprises microsites, contest entries, enewsletters, custom videos and galleries, and centred around interior designer content integration in English and French. Other House & Home client work can be seen here.

House & Home Mobile

2014

Without a much needed responsive redesign in sight due to budget constraints, we designed a stop-gap /m solution that would deliver 90% of the content in a straightforward manner. The site architecture was somewhat mirrored, but both content and design decisions were made to allow a quick rollout with existing resources.

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House & Home Client work

2009

Similar to client-branded campaigns, House & Home advertising partner campaigns required careful alignment with a client’s marketing goals.

Each client would have its own branding guidelines, of course, but my goal at House & Home was to augment the client’s message with our trusted name and reputation. This meant that editors needed to write in a style that felt familiar House & Home, and that our design team needed to keep true to the in-house aesthetic while respecting the client brand standards.

Some campaigns would be based on a related print ad or external campaign, so designs needed to complement the parent work.

My level of involvement differed with each project. In every case, however, I would review internal revisions, approve designs before they were sent to clients, monitor development, and approve for final deployment.

General Paint · microsite)

: Proctor & Gamble · microsite

: LG · microsite

: South Hill Home · enewsletter

: General Paint · enewsletter

TD Longer Hours

2008

A campaign to change the perception of TD Canada Trust as an ‘older’ bank that was inflexible, my design used a less formal approach than was typical for their website.

TD Student Services

2007

With this microsite-within-a-site, TD Canada Trust appealed to students in need of financial aid.
Other website integrations included retirement planning and insurance.

As a long-standing, well-established brand, the bank was very particular about only using their approved colours — greens and orange — so I used colourful photography to inject accessibility and vibrancy without breaking brand guidelines.

I included specific blues in the hero images to convey a sense of trust and stability.

RBC intranet

2004

I was designer and art director on this project. This website mockup content was under NDA, so all images and text have been replaced. This internal site was intended as a resource and communications portal for all levels of bank employees. It housed official company messages, resources, and articles.

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