SKIDMORE, OWINGS & MERRILL
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill partnered with National Geographic magazine to envision “Cities of the Future,” as part of the magazine’s upcoming issue focused on global urbanization. Our marketing team collaborated with National Geographic to publish these animations I created for Instagram using Adobe After Effects. These three posts garnered well over a million likes for SOM’s Instagram account.
MOBEXT, HAVAS MEDIA
After more than a decade of producing for news media, I was encouraged by a colleague to get ‘agency experience' when Al Jazeera America, where I worked as a senior producer, closed for business in 2016.
After a year of consulting work at BBDO, helping NY State restructure their sites, apps and publishing platforms, I joined Mobext, a Havas Media company. It was at Mobext where I fully immersed myself in the business side of digital production - composing contracts, tracking financials and cultivating client relationships. I also had the opportunity to produce a wider array of digital products and activations for the world's most recognized brands.
Working with global development teams and local vendors, the process of pitching, planning and then producing over a longer period of time was a real change from the chaotic, need-it-now environment of a newsroom.
Havas Village App
When an earlier version of the Havas Village App project was shelved, I seized the opportunity to redeploy the app for Apple and Android devices.
The Havas Village app helped locate employees by seat and floor, access their contact info and email them directly. Users could also book a conference room and use its event calendar to attend in-house seminars, festivities and even yoga classes.
Yellowtail [roo] app
Yellowtail wine, a Deutsch Family Wine & Spirits brand, wanted an app that would serve as an educational tool as well as help incentivize and motivate their sales reps and managers.
In response, we created the Roo app. Roo archives all of the tasting notes and other helpful info reps need on the field, has quizzes that allow sales reps to gain points toward sales prizes and uses the camera function to photograph retail placements for regional contests.
After Effects
Sometimes, I get an opportunity to do some light animations in After Effects. Here, an animated logo I created for a fuel company app intro screen.
The colors and movement evoke a clean aquatic feel to help promote the company’s commitment to environmental conservancy.
THE DAILY, NEWSCORP
As senior digital producer for The Daily, News Corp’s award-winning news app, I worked with the editor-in-chief and senior creative staff to produce 40-plus interactive news pages daily. The most intense collaborative and creative experience of my career to date, The Daily team worked relentlessly around the clock to deliver interactive news experiences still not found on desktop or mobile today.
Design: Ye Liu
A typical day at The Daily began with choosing leading stories that could be written, copy edited, designed and produced for early publishing using our pre-made templates. Later in the afternoon, the following day's issue was planned more carefully and included edited videos, interactive pages as well as unique story layouts that could only be accomplished using the iPad's unique features.
The Daily became the #1 iPad news app and #3 iPad overall in 2011, only 11 months after inception.
We built an engaged audience that commented, shared and spent 25-30 minutes with the app each day, 2+ visits/day and renewed on an average of 95%.
The Daily Debate Dial
What an amazing opportunity to work with such talent that helped put together 'The Daily Debate Dial.’ The task for the team was to come up with something original for the 2012 Presidential Debate between the incumbent Barack Obama and former Republican Governor Mitt Romney.
We created a second-screen experience that our iPad app users could use while watching the debates. Participants were encouraged to use the dial to record, in real-time, how they felt about what was said during the debate choosing a range from 'Strongly Agree' to 'Strongly Disagree.'
We also programmed it so that users could see, in real-time, how other participants voted throughout the debate. After the debate, we used this recorded data for infographics detailing how people voted regarding issues on the economy, Social Security and the Affordable Care Act.
REAL MONEY WITH ALI VELSHI | AL JAZEERA AMERICA
Original launch team member for Al Jazeera America’s Real Money with Ali Velshi. As senior digital producer, I edited video, produced original content and taught the on-air talent how to use the CMS to publish for the website. Along with another producer, we created the show's social media presence and used its material for Ali's show. Below, a history of the Federal Reserve I wrote and produced using Google interactive tools.
CNBC.com, COMCAST
Original launch team member for CNBC.com. As lead features producer, I worked with senior programmers and the art director to design and code special reports. Below, our Emmy-nominated feature I produced and coded - Boom, Bust & Blame, The Inside Story of America’s Economic Crisis. The special report explored events that led to the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
Marijuana & Money was another hugely successful feature the CNBC.com team produced that went on to win a Webby Award. I coded the feature to spec according to the art director’s design.
Photography
For a brief time, I also served as CNBC.com’s lead photographer, shooting and producing photo essays covering news from Wall Street to Fashion Week. These photo features were well received and garnered tens of millions of views for the site, according to Omniture metrics.
Photos featured below: The Daily, CNBC, MSNBC, NBC News, NY Times, Al Jazeera America.
