Lead Brand Designer for a completely new two-floor Nike Japan HQ environment in Tokyo. Worked with creative & design directors as well as internal and external design partners to develop and manage the creative vision. Designed environmental branding elements for the space, and guided teammates and international agency partners through design development and production process. Managed installation of Branding and custom local art onsite.
Design & Creative Direction: Nike Workplace Design + Connectivity - Chuck Eichten, Brandon Amann, Julia Bannon, Satoru Igarashi
Architect: Torafu Architects
Brand Design: Takaiyama
Photography: Nike
Re:store is an experiential retail destination featuring digitally-native brands IRL in a highly curated store + co-working community in San Francisco. I partnered with the Re:store’s founder, Selene Cruz, to manage the design and launch of Re:store's corporate branding, first physical retail location, website, and in-store app.
Creative Direction: Selene Cruz, Brian Madden
Design Agency: Storey Studio
Brand Design Agency: The Couch
GC & Fabrication: Gallagher (GDLA)
Art Installation: One Hat One Hand
Professional Photography: Tory Williams
GAME ROOM at Target Open House is a gaming-focused experiential retail destination and Guest insight lab for Target.
I partnered with Target New Ventures & Accelerators’ Open House team, contributing to the project’s multidisciplinary approach to help design and launch the immersive environment, including the furniture, branding, and experiential activations.
Creative Direction: Patricia Adler
Lead UX Designer: Allison Melton
Brand Design Agency: Periscope
Fabrication: Target Workshop
Scenic Illumination: Jeremy Helms
Photography: Kurieo
In January 2015, I worked directly with The North Face and IDL worldwide to create an engaging global fixture and window campaign to celebrate an exclusive 327-store global relaunch of the Summit Series, their pinnacle mountaineering product line. The Brand campaign called adventurers to go The Other Way and featured breathtaking, otherworldly imagery from a Himalayan Summit Series test climb. As design lead for the project, I led the creative RFP endeavor, concept development, design refinement and final production efforts. I worked directly with clients at The North Face to understand how best to highlight the 7-layer product line and refine the fixture designs, while collaborating internally with account and project management, design, engineering teams both in the United States and China, communicating and managing design intent across disciplines, offices, coasts and countries.
As I managed the development of the Summit Series Relaunch fixture, The North Face also granted our team the opportunity to design the corresponding national window campaign. Utilizing the otherworldly photographic assets provided by The North Face from the Himalayan test climb, I art-directed my graphic design teammates at IDL Worldwide, Brandon Hrycyk and Brian Eyler, to focus on geometry and dichotomy of light and dark to create a sense of texture and perceived structure within the windows.
While working with The North Face to complete and deliver the Summit Series fixture and retail window rollout, I traveled with my account and project management team to Salt Lake City, Utah to assemble the fixture for a Summit Series relaunch media event. I choreographed and co-starred in a live how-to video that became the basis for a more refined 3D-rendered assembly video guide, created by IDL’s Portland-based 3D visualization team, which we provided with the Summit Series fixture to store associates across the globe.
Nike Basketball’s Holiday 2016 campaign, Come Out of Nowhere, was born from the Cleveland Cavaliers’ unexpected, legendary comeback against the Golden State Warriors to win the NBA Finals after trailing three games to one. The campaign began with an impactful commercial featuring a stoic Lebron James who reminded viewers, “You’re not even supposed to be here, and yet… here you are.” Come Out of Nowhere featured inspiring stories from some of the NBA’s biggest stars, highlighting their abilities to overcome adversity and upset expectations at every step.
I collaborated with Nike Basketball and colleagues at IDL Worldwide as Creative Lead to guide the design, execution, and final installation of three premium retail environments in New York City to highlight the Come Out of Nowhere stories from Lebron James, Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, Paul George, Anthony Davis, Karl-Anthony Towns, Draymond Green, Demarcus Cousins, and Isaiah Thomas, accompanied by signature footwear and apparel. For the Harlem, NY location of House of Hoops, shown here, we created an immersive, museum-inspired installation to feature each athlete with corresponding product presentation and adversity storytelling.
MASQ was a holiday masquerade ball benefiting the Portland Institute of Contemporary Art and built on the mystery and intrigue of a full moon set amidst a wintry wilderness. I joined a talented team of designers and technologists from Nike, Axiom and SET to brainstorm and develop concepts for the overall environment and experience, ultimately overseeing the design and execution of a forest of life-sized mirrored trees to build mystery and reflectivity within the experience. I worked with leadership at IDL Worldwide to raise funds to support the cause for PICA, overseeing development, manufacturing, delivery and installation of the forest within the space, while assisting with overall show production.
The Luminaries lighting design showcase and silent charity auction was a one-night design exhibition held at Gallery 135 in Portland, Oregon, USA on September 24, 2015. All proceeds supported Portland’s local chapter of Habitat for Humanity. We provided 35 creative ‘luminaries’ within the fields of design, architecture, and film, a kit of IKEA lighting components that they used to design and build their own custom ‘luminaries’, which we showcased and auctioned off in a lively event setting.
Working with the IDL Worldwide events committee as the acting creative director, exhibition designer, and event host, I guided the design of the overall Luminaries event experience while concepting, developing, and managing the installation of a dynamic, origami-inspired display structure that spanned 76 feet through the gallery, informing a paper-folding aesthetic for event branding and marketing collateral.
The snaking, geometric display vessel supported an eclectic mix of lighting typologies while concealing a hidden power supply throughout the entire structure. The freestanding exhibition format also complemented an ongoing wall-based solo art show by encaustic painter, Lisa Klupenger.
Professional Photography by Rachel Vera
Before the launch of the Jordan Brand's first-ever store in New York City, Flight 23, Jordan approached IDL Worldwide to design and build inaugural in-store displays that would highlight Jordan’s arrival to the Big Apple, while featuring NBA star Carmelo Anthony's new M10 shoe. The store would also feature a retrospective display of his signature footwear line, called "A Decade in Melo." As Design Lead on the project, I developed and presented concepts for each of the retail elements in very tight timeframe, refining them with Jordan Brand clients, and working closely with team members at IDL Worldwide and Jordan to produce in time for Flight 23's Grand Opening on February 01, 2014. Spike Lee and 50 Cent were in attendance. Not a bad turnout.
Photography: Ben Draper, Sneakernews, and Nike
Commemorating The Kid’s 2016 induction into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame, my team and I designed, built and shipped kits progressively throughout the 2016 MLB season to celebs including Barack Obama, Lebron James, Charles Barkley, and Ken Griffey, Jr himself. As creative lead on the project, I sketched concepts at the table with our Nike Sportswear clients and then guided a talented IDL Worldwide team through further concept design, development, and production, while working directly with Nike Sportswear.
Client: Nike Sportswear
Production: IDL Worldwide / MarketCraft
Professional Photography: Rachel Vera
The Hub is a conversation piece. It promotes diverse perspectives within a collaborative environment. Inspired aesthetically by the likes of Nelson, Calder and Baldessari, its deliberately varied seat heights actively encourage the free flow of ideas from differing viewpoints, making the Hub ideal for any place where problem-solving happens.
The Hub is for social animals. It is a dynamic seating structure around which groups converge to talk, ponder, work and play together. The bar-height surface acts as a lectern or a ‘pit stop’ for any quick rendezvous, and the six other stools can host countless configurations of social encounters. The center stool can function as a card table, and Hubs used en masse are useful in public spaces and parties.
The Hub was designed to be easily disassembled for transport and provides users a sturdy hook to hold coats, bags and more. The High Pressure Decorative Laminate (HPDL) surfaces are durable enough to survive the coffee spills, wayward pencil marks and other side effects of creativity.
In 2017, the Hub and I appeared on NBC’s Naturally, Danny Seo in a special segment featuring Wilsonart laminate and their annual student challenge.
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During my Senior year as a Rochester Institute of Technology Industrial Design student, I participated in the Wilsonart Student Challenge, guided by materials expert Grace Jeffers, within Professor Josh Owen’s first annual Metaproject course. Students would design and fabricate a seating device meant to promote Wilsonart Laminate material while addressing a specific context and seating typology. Each student in the project was also tasked with incorporating a Hollyberry Red Wilsonart sample chip into their furniture design. I went for functionality by creating a helpful hook for coats, bags and umbrellas.