Client

Show Choir Canada

Period

07.2010 – 05.2011

Client Bio

The official show choir organization in Canada for high school students. Show Choir Canada runs a yearly competition to find the best show choir in Canada and also has educational services for schools, teachers and students to improve their own talents.

Objective

To help solidify Show Choir Canada as the de facto authority on show choirs in Canada. To help launch, refine and distinguish SCC as the preeminent Glee showcase in the Canadian market. To create a corporate brand and a sub brand for a championship event, an educational/school brand and a brand for the Glee student community. Identity, website, promotional marketing materials, form design, etc., were all combined under the Show Choir Canada umbrella brand to solidify one juggernaut in the industry.

Noteworthy

The branding of a new entity is always difficult when the organization is just beginning to develop who they are and what they mean to the industry as a whole. Constantly morphing, depending on its success in certain areas of the industry, Show Choir Canada was learning about both itself and the sometimes quirky nature of its audience and potential sponsors. But after a considerable number of meetings and group research, four separate but coherent entities were formed to coalesce the vision of Show Choir Canada.

Vendor

Thirst

Client

da Costa Talent Management

Period

04.2009 – 08.2009

Client Bio

The leading Canadian talent management agency for ‘triple-threat’ talent.

Objective

To further brand themselves via a successful launch online as the premiere triple threat talent agency in Toronto. To make it easier for industry clients to quickly peruse their many talented performers, to help save time and money with their representations and to better serve their agency client’s interests.

Noteworthy

Several years earlier Thirst had rebranded da Costa Talent and because of this we had a solid starting point for the web site. This talent agency has evolved into a mature agency and it needed to have a strong forum for its industry clients to peruse its agency clients (talent). When completed, notices of the launch were sent to every casting director in Canada, LA and NYC, every theatre and commercial production house in Canada and every industry contact that da Costa Talent had made in the past 10 years.

Feedback

I’ve received overwhelming praise on the website from both my clients and the industry just one day after launching. There is a clear consensus that the sites’ layout is simple to navigate and at the same time interesting and unique in comparison to other competing agencies. This is going to be a great tool to both showcase my clients and elevate our status in the industry. I could not of achieved this important milestone without your guidance and expertise.

Vendor

Thirst

Client

New York Daily News

Period

07.2000 – 03.2001

Client Bio

Largest-selling New York metropolitan daily, covering stories that affect New Yorkers.

Personal History

To become properly acquainted with the newspaper I lived with it for approximately two weeks. I noticed that it was portable and easily readable on the subway but then when I did get to work I had to wash my hands of the black ink. It was fairly right-wing, had a huge library of photos at it’s disposal (larger than that of the New York Times) and if you were a sports fanatic this was the newspaper you read. My conclusion after those two weeks was that its brand was already a definite force, stable and well respected. I went into the pitch concentrating on the fact it was an everyman’s newspaper, familiar to every New Yorker and part of their daily routine for that subway ride into work and therefore its online extension should be just that. What followed was a bold, assertive design reminiscent of its rational brother.

It is interesting to note that newly redesigned online version has completely lost its faithfulness to the traditional newspaper and is now unfortunately nondescript.

Objective

To extend the print brand online.

Noteworthy

It was decided that the online brand should be more faithful to the newspaper. The previous attempt to port the brand online was too “tricky” and nondescript so much of the NYDN style became lost on the low resolution of a monitor. As a result, the logo was redesigned so that the online identity and section identities would be harmonious with the newspaper’s, the editorial voice and image content was augmented and the advertising placement was substantially improved. In behind the scenes, the client-side interface for the delivery and deployment of content was vastly improved a complete restructuring of the content production process to ease workflow concerns was implemented.

Vendor

Hired by Circle.com, a division of Havas.

Client

Univision

Period

05.1999 – 07.2000

Client Bio

The largest and most influential Hispanic television media company in the United States.

Personal History

This was a biggie. Univision was a very important client and spent a lot of money to put itself online. Univision hired IBM for its back end, teamed with IAB for its front end design and editorial leadership and the Gryphon Group for acting as the interim CTO and as an ambassador for technology decisions. Univision also partnered with a major hispanic sales organization to power its store front for their shopping channel. There were many players all trying to work together to deliver a great experience for Univision’s dedicated viewers. Although I can remember this being a struggle at times, the final product was very good and really delivered a distinctive, very hispanic brand online. I also formed a great friendship from this venture with my future business partner Michael Nicklas.It is unfortunate that Univision did not keep this design. Their present design is nondescript and lacks a visual identity that resonates with their brand.

Objective

An online venture to extend the Univision brand to the web and initiate the convergence of television and the Internet.

Noteworthy

A branding umbrella approach was taken for Univision. The original television logo was extended to include the “.com” and the channels within were represented as sub-brands. To extend their content online, the Univision stars were leveraged to create a unique and targeted online family, an integrated e-commerce experience was created, a scaleable template framework was developed to facilitate realistic site growth and easy manageability and lastly a comprehensive staffing and workflow plan was provided. Univision rose to #1 within six months after this launch.

Vendor

Hired by IAB (Roger Black)

Client

Newsweek

Period

02.1999 – 06.1999

Client Bio

Weekly American news magazine.

Personal History

I always enjoy redesigning newspapers or magazines, on or offline. Newsweek was no different. Walking into their offices felt familiar and I understood the staff well. This bunch were more like newspaper people than magazine people and very intent on making sure that their content was king. They wanted boldness and readability, they wanted the print brand recognizable in their online brand and they wanted their magazine to take another step forward online.

Objective

To redesign the logo and website for Newsweek online but maintain the instantly recognizable style of the print magazine’s visual identity.

Noteworthy

Extended the print brand online. Hired the original typographer, Jim Parkinson, to graft ‘.com’ onto the logo. The website gained a new navigational structure, flexible templates, and more content (copy and images) on the home page.

Vendor

Hired by IAB (Roger Black)

Client

Morbid Outlook

Period

08.2001 – 11.2001

Client Bio

The premier Gothic lifestyle online magazine portal.

Personal History

There are markets everywhere. This project was for a friend who decided that she wanted a more polished look for her e-zine that was easier to maintain. As a side note, this magazine is still hand coded and would do much better if moved to a CMS.

Objective

To increase the number of viewers online, to enhance and support greater advertising revenue potential and to expand the base viewing audience.

Noteworthy

Thirst completely overhauled Morbid Outlook’s online experience. The new site has easy access to much more content. The levels of editorial are supported within a clear navigational structure and all pages are enhanced by leveraging the site’s personalities and artists. Only a month after the redesign, the hits doubled, the average length of visit increased over 60% and the number of pages viewed per visit more than doubled. Morbid Outlook now has an easily scaleable template framework to facilitate its strong site growth.

Vendor

Thirst

Client

EngageMe

Period

2006 – Present

Client Bio

Startup internet venture.

Personal History

This project was slowly evolved during countless brainstorming sessions on how to fix the inaccurate and problematic tracking of user surfing patterns that companies use now-a-days to dictate a user’s online interests. Most of you can probably recognize the issues everyone faces with examples of your own. For myself it was the fact that many companies were tracking my movements across the internet and defining me incorrectly on very narrow terms, and one day it culminated frustratingly on Amazon where I was served up an offer for yet another children’s book just because I bought one for my niece over one year earlier. For my business partner it was the fact that Google kept returning billions of results on such a wide array of topics because they feel that giving you everything is what you deserve but not necessarily what you really wanted.

Keyword advertising had just taken off and Google was not yet the beast it is today. Other search engines were trying to radically change the direction of what search meant and delivered but unfortunately the simple one page of ten results that Google put out in a couple of micro seconds seemed to gain popularity too fast for other companies to challenge. I would bet that now-a-days, since our connections are generally much faster, that what has seemingly become Google’s trademark results would be drastically better.

So how do you make them better? I would argue the answer is to know and understand the user’s interests better and to deliver information that is skewed towards those interests. But to do this you would have to ask the user about themselves and behave honestly and track them across the web. You would also have to make sure that you did not take in any ‘personally identifiable information’ as that isn’t a trustworthy action.

This is what EngageMe intends to be: open, honest and accurate.

Objective

To create a proof of concept for an interest profile toolset using open source tools (LAMP) based on an AJAX model. EngageMe enables a user-centric profile ownership model that leverages non-personally identifiable information (PII) for security reasons and fast adoption and interoperability with emerging open profile standards.

Noteworthy

An interest taxonomy was developed with over 700k+ interests. A bookmark analyzer allows users to create an initial profile that can then be shared across social networks. Advertisers using EngageMe can target users based on their interests rather than tracking.

Vendor

Thirst for EngageMe

Client

Sakonnet

Period

07.2001 – 10.2001

Client Bio

Sakonnet Technology provides trading and risk management software and services to companies in the global energy markets.

Personal History

I met a wonderful and slightly kooky friend there by the name of Thurstan Bannister. He was great to work with and had more personal energy than me on my best day. I have to repeat myself here, ‘when your client is upbeat, your project is easier to accomplish and better as a result.’

Objective

To bolster the online presence of Sakonnet, to increase the interest in their software and services, and to enable potential clients to peruse a future buying decision based on the information within.

Noteworthy

Thirst extended the brand online. The new information and organization within the site was greatly enhanced, and shortly before its launch a Director of Product Strategy was hired to look after all marketing within the company. Thirst leveraged the employees and their commitment to their company to promote their friendly, cooperative and efficient customer service. This site is fully modular and scaleable, the template framework provided an easy way for a small company to facilitate realistic site growth and easy manageability.

Vendor

Thirst

Client

Zoonlab

Period

1999

Client Bio

A start-up venture for delivering information over wireless devices.

Objective

To create a visual identity that could also be easily output on cell phones.

Noteworthy

Thirst was able to play with the “Zoon” prefix to separate the core company “Zoonlab” from its software “Zoonwav”. Both logos use the same typography and format but are distinguished through their suffixes and different marks. This strategy enabled Zoonlab to augment and unify its visual identity.

Vendor

Thirst