Selected Work

Case studies from twenty years of shipping products, platforms, and brands. Click any card to read the full story.

Case 01 / New York MTA

OMNY: The new tap & go payment system for New York’s MTA

Status: System rollout started early 2019 — View Live
My Role: Executive Creative Director; Executive Producer; also filled gaps for strategy, copy, UX, and visual design as needed.
OMNY final MVP design at launch
Final MVP design at launch

Business context: New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) rolled out a new, integrated ‘tap-and-go’ payment system for the New York subway, busses, ferries, the Metro-North Rail (MNR), and Long Island Rail Road (LIRR). The system would be capable of accepting smartphone wallets and cards with NFC chips directly at turnstiles—no swipes or tokens required—and include an online portal for managing corporate, family, and individual accounts.

At the time I was running a small design firm, Bright Iron Group, and landed the contract to deliver an overarching design system, plus UX design, UI design, copy, and final production assets for a new website, mobile app, touch-screen interfaces for turnstile validators, touch-screen interfaces for new in-station vending machines, and a B2B portal for corporate and group account management.

OMNY design exploration

We had a ton of fun with this project. We got to meet some of the people who made the original New York City Transit Authority Graphics Standards Manual, and worked to carry through their standards into our work. It was a huge honor just to meet them and hear their ideas, and we felt lucky for every moment of their time. And as luck would have it, the subway stations had also just begun a massive interior design overhaul that year. We had the great fortune to meet some of the design team involved with that initiative, and learned how they were working to make those spaces more accessible and navigable for the broadest possible audience of riders—important tenets for web traffic as well. Our goal was to learn from the design culture and heritage that had been carefully wrought over the years by world class designers, and then do our very best to not screw it up.

Accessibility and contrast studies

Accessibility being top of mind, we read up on WCAG guidelines and found various contrast tests and color blindness simulations to make sure our color selections worked for everyone. Our web development team also picked up the most used screen reader equipment for QA engineering. Spend some time browsing your favorite sites or accomplishing an online task with a screen reader and you’ll never let ADA non-compliance slip through your designs again.

As we researched, we started to sketch and collect photos.

Early sketches and photo research

Moodboards became styleboards…

MTA styleboard

…became design directions, themes, and compositions.

Design direction compositions

We eventually codified a comprehensive design system that was implemented across the mobile app, turnstile validators, and vending machines. Socializing the design system and delivering development assets was no small feat since we were working with distributed hardware and software contractors in different regions for different system components (railroad validators vs. subway and bus validators vs. vending machines, etc.).

Design system documentation examples
Illustrative examples — the full PDF is hundreds of pages
Case 02 / American Express

American Express Business Class: a content publishing platform and SEO engine

Status: View Live
My Role: Group Creative Director / Design Manager
American Express Business Class homepage
American Express Business Class: homepage

The ask: American Express was looking for a fresh look & feel for OPEN Forum—a content repository for thought leadership articles published by American Express over the years. Our reframe was that this content should not only look better, but also work harder by optimally capturing search traffic and answering real questions for small business owners.

Our KPIs would be an increase in search traffic volume, increased average time spent on site, and click through rate to product pages on the commerce site from the content platform (renamed Business Trends & Insights; and later Business Class).

The ‘north star’ driving our research and design thinking was the insight that, coupled with the Amex product offering of financial backing for businesses, a knowledge center could evolve toward something akin to a self-service business accelerator.

The platform MVP, “Business Trends & Insights,” came together and launched in under 3 months. The editorial calendar grew to include series content, live and social-hosted events (e.g. “Insta MBA”), partnerships, and podcasts. The team today produces some 40+ new articles per month based on customer needs and market research.

Business Trends and Insights content ecosystem
Business Trends & Insights content ecosystem

Our design team also kept busy iterating on the look and feel toward an immersive experience with full-bleed video, liberal use of white space for scannability and reading comfort, and thoughtful dynamic photography containers with aspect ratios that are more friendly across multiple breakpoints and devices. The net effect was a new site design system that looked sharp and wasn’t as easy to break.

Business Class design iteration
The latest design iteration and renaming to American Express Business Class launched in early spring 2020 and has seen a steady increase in all critical metrics since.
Case 03 / Hilton Honors

Hilton Honors Landing Page

Status: View Live
My Role: Group Creative Director / Usability Testing Manager & Moderator
Hilton Honors landing page redesign

The ask: Redesign the American Express + Hilton co-brand landing page to improve conversion metrics.

KPIs: “Apply Now” clicks; application submission rate (conversion); net new customer acquisitions. We also tracked traffic volume & sources (with keyword strategy), bounce rate, approvals per card, etc. to track detailed performance over time.

Outcomes: Extremely positive on all fronts. Still early as of this writing, but for the first two months our redesign has been seeing a significant increase in application starts and submissions over the control site during the same period. We’re doing better than the top of our prediction range and have plans to continue optimizations this year.

Hilton Honors landing page before redesign
Before: the initial version had all the details needed to compare the cards on offer, but it was a little too sterile to be compelling—from a customer standpoint, the experience felt more like signing a legal contract than shopping for a new card with fun perks and status boosts.

Our customer-centered approach was to “show, not tell” the value in the offering. What are ‘points’ worth to me? Is there a faster way to learn which card is right for me (for every audience)?

An additional challenge in this specific project was timing. This page was set to launch during the 2020 covid lockdown. Who was flying? Nobody. Who was staying in hotels? “I don’t know” was the sentiment at the time, “aren’t those all just pop-up hospitals now?” (No.)

The solution was to soften the language in the headlines and be hyper critical of photography—nothing too happy, nothing too traveling, nothing with people near each other, etc. The plan for the site, as vaccines roll out and the landscape shifts (however it does), is to monitor content and iterate on a regular schedule—always tracing traffic metrics along the way.
Case 04 / Smith + Crown

Smith + Crown: Cryptofinance asset terminal

Status: Closed Alpha. View S+C research here
My Role: UX / UI Oversight, Product Management, Data Analytics
Smith + Crown Intelligence terminal at launch
Final MVP design at launch

Business context: Smith + Crown is a research firm and consultancy with a focus on blockchain technology, cryptofinance, and advanced data analytics (AI, ML, NLP, etc.). In 2019 we launched a public beta test of their new Intelligence terminal.

Smith + Crown Intelligence (SCI) is intended for professional investors and industry professionals alike. It features asset profiles and analysis, crypto market data, independent research reporting, a glossary of blockchain terminology, and curated industry news. We were a small team so my purview was broad and included: oversight for design (branding, UX, UI), product launch, data analytics (implementation and maintenance), and user growth.

The Smith + Crown Intelligence terminal consisted of live market data and in-depth asset profiles for over 2,000 projects, plus daily news briefings, a glossary of terms, and access to full-text deep-dive research reports. Smith + Crown has been covering the blockchain and web3 space since 2013; I worked with them in various capacities from 2016–2019.

SCI markets detail view
SCI research view

Branding for the terminal needed to signal S+C’s history and affiliation within the crypto community without alienating visitors from traditional finance looking for exposure to the space (good for everyone). In the end, we developed a design system and UI kit that was dark, minimal, and allowed for comfortable long-reads and interactive charts. Below is an example moodboard and an iteration of the UI kit.

SCI visual inspiration moodboard
SCI design system and UI kit
Case 05 / The Grail

The Grail: A marketplace for collectors

Status: Live (designs may be out of date)
My Role: Business Development; Creative Direction; Branding Oversight; UX Design Oversight
The Grail final design at launch
Final design at launch

Business context: The Grail is a new platform to buy, sell, and trade collectibles and valuable memorabilia. The Grail will focus on music items (think Kurt Cobain’s smashed guitars and rare posters from live concerts past), but plans to eventually branch out into sports collectibles, film memorabilia, antiques, etc.

The Grail originally launched as Collectionzz.com, where they were able to build a community and gain some traction. As site traffic started to steadily grow, the company founder came to us to rebrand the site and begin building out functionality for e-commerce, bartering, and auctions.

Branding was fun for this one. The founder knew what he was looking for, and collections are naturally interesting to humans so making the site interesting was relatively easy.

The Grail branding exploration
The Grail brand applications

UX design was also a fun challenge here. We got to design out and test new functionality for auctions and help develop the P2P marketplace for the site community. I check back frequently and hope to see the full set of intended functionality deployed in the near future.

The Grail marketplace UX
The Grail auction functionality
Case 06 / Aimi

Aimi: A smoking cessation app

Status: Pilot. Full application launch pending research results
My Role: Creative Direction, Product Strategy, UI Design, UI Copywriting, Technical Production
Aimi app branding

Business context: Aimi is a mobile app with the mission to help people quit smoking. Produced by Dr. Reddy’s (an international pharma company), the Aimi app has lofty ambitions to lead a suite of apps and IoT products that help consumers track their daily behavior and achieve their healthy lifestyle and dietary goals.

Armed with primary research from the Dr. Reddy’s team, we created the brand identity, engaging user experience, and user interface design around the basic tenet that all smokers—whether they are ready to quit or not—can gain control by tracking their habit, engaging with activities & challenges, and speaking with a personal coach to set attainable goals.

The myAimi app (piloted on iOS and Android) allows you to set goals, track both usage and urges, engage with daily challenges, and speak with a live “coach” (from a corporate call center—initially engaged to field the first 1,000 users in the pilot). Tracking your habit was quick, with minimal interaction effort required, and data visualizations allow you to understand your habit objectively.

Initial research indicates that just the act of tracking your habit, with no initial quitting or reduction goals, reduced nicotine usage on average by over 50%.

Aimi app screens
Aimi app tracking screens
Case 07 / mbInnovations

mbInnovations: An R&D group funded by Verizon

My Role: Group Creative Director
Note: All work from this period is under NDA.

Prior to joining Bright Iron Group, I was a founding member of mbInnovations—a small strategic product research and design group within Mcgarrybowen (a large, NY-based advertising agency). Our focus was the intersection of emerging trends in consumer behavior and emerging technologies. The end goal was to create new products, services, and innovative business models / revenue streams for large enterprise organizations.

My role on the team was Group Creative Director, overseeing other creative directors, designers, UX designers, writers, and engineers. It was a fun group and felt like family.

The group was initially funded for the first 3 years by Verizon, whose needs and goals largely shaped our process and directed our purview. Our ongoing discretion and confidentiality was a priority to our clients, and all of our work during this period is under NDA. Pictured below is an infographic we created to describe our work and process to prospective clients.

mbInnovations process infographic
Case 08 / Nitstone Capital

Nitstone Capital

My Role: Creative Direction; Branding Oversight; UX/UI Design Oversight

Nitstone Capital is an India-based private financial institution that focuses on micro-lending for personal and small business loans. Our challenge was to create a brand, information architecture, and user experience that would speak to a broad audience—from unbanked communities, to students, and small business owners—all while capturing a professional and beautiful look and feel.

Nitstone’s competition (mostly banks) all use extremely bold, bright primary colors and features photography full of obviously posed actors with big smiles staring right at the camera. Moving away from this loud, in-your-face design, we felt, would help distinguish Nitstone and give them the competitive advantage they needed to get their new business off the ground.

Nitstone Capital branding
Nitstone Capital brand system
Nitstone Capital website design
Nitstone Capital UX design
Nitstone Capital UI details
Case 09 / HeyTiger

HeyTiger Lending

My Role: Creative Direction; Project Management; UX Strategy; UX/UI Design Oversight; Branding Oversight

HeyTiger is an India-based lending institution specializing in home loans, real estate development lending, and mortgage refinancing.

We helped HeyTiger build their brand and platform from scratch. We started with branding workshops to establish the brand look and feel, tone of voice, logo, UI elements, iconography, typography, and color palette. We then helped structure their product offering into a concise information architecture, represented by a sitemap and comprehensive wireframes, and finally put it all together with visual design compositions and brand style guidelines.

HeyTiger branding
HeyTiger brand system
HeyTiger website design
HeyTiger UX wireframes
HeyTiger visual design