It's sadly true: wildfires are now a fact of life in Oregon. And because more and more people live in or next to "wildland urban interfaces", more and more people will have to face them or their consequences every year. That's the driving force behind Wildfire-Ready Oregon, a project of 1000 Friends of Oregon to help all Oregonians make sure they're ready and resilient in the face of a more flammable planet ...[There’s more]
Brand and messaging strategy.
UX/UI/print design. Film, video and still photography, from development to post-production. Decades of experience focusing all of them into smart, authentic communication.
Let’s make something together.
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Access Tech
Access Tech is an approachable, seasoned group of IT professionals who needed to stand out in a field crowded with big players and a lot of buzzwords. SD-WAN SECaaS, anyone?
So I recommended they make a virtue of their size ...[There’s more] -
Portland’s Transportation System Plan
The Transportation System Plan is Portland's ambitious roadmap for the next 20 years, charting a course toward what the city should focus on and invest in to accommodate the quarter-million new residents expected to move here. It's a visionary document with a girth to match: 350 exhaustively researched and highly detailed pages. My task was to distill it into a 7-minute introduction ..[There’s more] -
Through the Gates
Eve was an acquaintance I knew through social media when I started noticing her posts from a trip through Vietnam. The writing — short vignettes somewhere between poetry and prose – was so incredible I contacted her when she got back: let’s make a book together...[There’s more] -
Oregon Flora
Oregon Flora is an incredible repository of information on more than 4700 vascular plants across the state. I completely overhauled the site to clearly communicate its value, relevance and importance, redesigned the UI of its tools to make them more intuitive to both experts and a plant-loving public, and overall, made this complex dataset more accessible – even fun... [There’s more] -
A Nightmare homage
What do you get when you cross a Stay Home Order, cabin fever, and someone who drapes so elegantly in an ivory crepe empire waist dress?
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Cave of Fermented Dreams
This past summer, I had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to document an earth-shattering discovery: a primitive cave culture whose works had lain dormant for untold years. Journey along with us as we uncork… the Cave of Fermented Dreams!
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Notre Dame
Today, after the fire that ravaged Notre Dame, this intersection of transept and nave – directly below the spire that crumbled in flames – now opens to the heavens above Paris, smeared with ash and ...
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Nick Fish for Portland
I consulted on two ultimately victorious political campaigns this spring, contributing foundational messaging strategy to both. Closest to home was Portland City Councilor Nick Fish’s bid for re-election against a tough, insurgent challenger.The result? A resounding 61.8% of the vote in the primary, well past the 50% threshold that would have forced a runoff in November. Now, instead of running for office this summer and fall, Nick can devote all his considerable energy to the important work he does for all Portlanders on City Council... [There’s more] -
The Living History Project
This summer, I was honored to donate some of my time to a co-production of the Living History Project and The Immigrant Story, filming and interviewing a diverse cross-section of North Portland residents about their lives and communities.
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Cameron Spritz
Working with Oregon's iconic (and iconoclastic) Cameron Winery has always been a pleasure, in large part because they take nothing seriously except the wine they make. Smart, funny, and generous, they've been the best possible collaborators on a number of design and video projects through the years.This year, they tried their hand at the lowliest of beverage categories, the wine cooler. And why not? It's summer, and it's hot outside. Why not try something refreshing and well made?So I shot and cut a couple of quick promos for this scintillating concoction, the Cameron Spritz, working from their concept and script and fine tuning it with them on set and in the edit bay... [There’s more] -
plasq.com
After creating the UX and UI for Comic Touch, plasq's spiffy comic book cover creation app, I had a pretty good idea about who the company was and what it stood for. So when they asked me to revitalize and refocus the company's website, I knew immediately what it should say: fun. Like a comic book, but with scroll bars.Working with plasq's onsite developer, I created a bright, sunny and light-hearted UI, steeped in the visual language of classic comic books... [There’s more] -
Winter night
It’s pretty unusual for it to snow where I live, and highly unusual for it to snow this much. So right around midnight, I set up a tripod in the middle of the road and ...
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Montessori Public
You may not know this about me, but a long time ago, I ran an alternative paper here in Portland. We called it "The Free Agent," and in addition to editing the rag, it was my first large-scale design project. I remember the warm, round smell of hot wax (used to stick columns of text to boards), the din of newsprint speeding through the rollers, the satisfaction of turning the pages in my hand after I grabbed one, literally hot off the press.So you can imagine how excited I was when the National Center for Montessori in the Public Sector asked me to help them revive the newspaper it sends to its teachers and schools around the country. It was like getting back on a bicycle after a long hiatus, only now I had 25 years of experience to leverage as I hopped on ... [There’s more] -
Outdoor School for All
[UPDATE 11.08.16: The Outdoor School for All initiative passes overwhelmingly!]Since its first band of Medford sixth graders in 1957, Outdoor School’s mission has been simple: get our next generation of leaders off the couch and out into Oregon’s great outdoors. It's a uniquely Oregon tradition, and one that reflects the heart and soul of what it means to live here. The problem is that because of increasingly tight school budgets, currently only about half of Oregon’s students get to experience Outdoor School.The braintrust behind this worthy initiative asked me to help articulate exactly why it's in every Oregonian's interest to bring this to life. From a creative brief I developed pinpointing the advantages and opportunities of Outdoor School, I created branding, an introductory pitch brochure, and a leave-behind addressing funding head-on. -
Growing Gardens
Simply put, Growing Gardens teaches people how to grow their own food in their own back yards. And that's part of why I love it, and have been donating my time to it since 2011: the simplicity of the concept. With the simple act of growing your own food, you get healthier people, a healthier planet, and healthier communities. That's a lot of bang for your buck.I started donating design and production of their annual reports but quickly expanding my role into communications and brand strategy, focusing and refining how they talk about what they do and why it matters. That effort culminated in this "seed packet" I wrote and designed... -
The BTA Alice Awards
It's been an honor to support the Bicycle Transportation Alliance with strategy and creative for its signature fundraising event – the Alice Awards + Auction – since its very first edition. But this year was different: after more than 25 years, the organization was changing its name and expanding its mission beyond bicycling to walking and transit.So, really, the BTA turned to me with two projects in one: not only branding strategy and creative for the event, but for the new organization, too. -
Heather embraced
From a portrait series I'm working on, my friend Heather, embraced by the foliage in her back yard.
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Fiddlehead spiral
A fiddlehead curls up like a cat into a furry golden spiral – spring is definitely purring along in my neighborhood.
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Les Garagistes Winery
Okay, full disclosure: this is a project where the client is me. Or to be more precise, me and about 30 other people in the cooperative I run. Talk about a tough client!Still, it was a great opportunity to take my decades of design and packaging experience and focus it on something I love: making wine. So I treated this client as a real client, starting with a brand articulation and then executing it through a rigorous visual strategy – one ultimately featured in Communication Arts ...
