Digital Creative Leader & Strategist
Project Description: John Michael Kohler Center for the Arts is a gallery space which aims to bring art to the residents of Wisconsin. As such, they required an interactive timeline that could demonstrate the Center's commitment to their vision over the last 50 years. The interactive timeline exists in the gallery on a 32 inch screen, as well as on their website. The timeline features swiping interactions on the touch screens and click and drag on desktop. There are also several filters that can be applied to narrow down the the nodes on the 50-year timeline.
Another recent project from the John Michael Kohler Arts Center is The Road Less Traveled Exhibition. It encompasses all installation exhibitions from the year 2017 and features responses from other artists. Because of the complicated, linked style of the exhibitions, they required a new gallery template, especially since some of the art will only be viewable online. Of course, the main feature of this landing experience is the beautiful imagery. The logo for the exhibition series is also something which was custom-made and hangs in the gallery.
Key Results: Both of these projects have launched in February, so it is too early to rely on specific metrics, but in both cases, the client required designs that pushed the boundaries of the site and they were very pleased with the outcome. In addition, both of these experiences are built on a CMS, which allows the client to update information easily. This is especially important since both of these experiences will live for at least a year. Undoubtedly, each page will have new content in the coming months.
Art Direction: B Gomez
Design: K Lanza
Copy: J Clemente
Click to see The Road Less Traveled Exhibition
Click to see the Timeline
Project Description: Dippin' Dots is known as the ice cream of the future and kids across the country love them! You can find them at stadiums, zoos, gas stations and malls across the country Yes, this site design is a kitschy, but so is the brand. The design of the website needed to match the fun, crazy branding of the stores.
The client needed a web redesign that improved on mobile experience. The locator is especially important to them because so many people use it to find the product wherever they're going. In addition, the client likes to use the CMS to it's fullest extent. They need to flexibility to update the website at the drop of the hat for fun promotions.
Another aspect of this redesign was to make mobile-optimized emails. Though these emails are not responsive, the templates are flexible enough for easy updating and follow best practice. All type and buttons are readable and clickable on a mobile device.
Key Results: After relaunch of this site, the load time was reduced, so customers began spending much more time exploring the site. The client also enjoys the ease of updating all of the copy, images and background patterns. They have even learned to use gifs and video in unique ways to enhance the branding on the site.
Art Direction: B Gomez
Art Direction: K Lanza
Copy: J Clemente
Project Description: The biggest design challenge with the BuySeasons identity is making sure that all the logos under the BuySeasons umbrella all look related together. All of the identity materials share the same colors and fonts.
Because BuySeasons sells costumes and party supplies, it is important that their identity reflects the fun product, yet maintaining a professional look.
Key Results: Successful in creating logos which are unique and fun on their own, yet still live as a cohesive group. These logos reflect the fun company culture. In addition, thousands of print and digital files were updated to support this change.
Logo Design: Core Creative
Design: K Lazna
Art Direction: M Velez
Project Description: As part of the plan to replatform BuyCostumes.com and implement a new content management system, a brand refresh was required. This redesign was conducted with a mobile-first mindset meaning, the mobile version was designed first to ensure the best possible experience. Some key points of the design which illustrate mobile optimization are a pinned bottom menu, search bar or add to bag button. When a user holds a device in their hand, the bottom of the screen is easiest to hit.
While a mobile-first strategy was used in this redesign, the desktop version of each page takes advantage of wider user screens.
Key Results: Using agile development, we did user research which informed wireframes and full design concepts. We even ended up using a more app-like approach in this concept, due to the high level of usability it creates for the customer.
Design: K Lanza
Copy: M Webber
Art Direction: M Velez & S Mowry
Project Description: Doc Popcorn is a novelty food retailer that you can find mostly in malls across the country. They are primarily a brick and mortar operation, but introduced an ecommerce templated website a few years back.
Doc Popcorn came to Crescendo Collective for a website redesign using a Content Management system. They wanted a branded website with a better mobile experience and overall easier shopping experience regardless of device.In this case, the client wanted to control the design of the site and looked to us, the agency, for our digital expertise. Layered, photoshop templates (last image), similar to wireframes, but more detailed and designed to proper dimensions were provided to Doc Popcorn to fill out. We ensured proper web resolutions, images sizes, and best practices were followed before we coded the templates. We provided back and front end development of this site.
Key Results: Because this site was built on a CMS, the client can easily update images, backgrounds, and copy on this site immediately without the help of an agency.
Overall commerce sales improved by 20% in the first month of the redesigns launch. Overall bounce rate was decreased by 7% as well.
Art Direction: K Lanza, B Gomez
Design: H Hollingshead
Copy: J Clemente
Project Description: These days, more and more people are opening their email on their mobile or tablet devices and because of that, it is important to make sure your email looks great in every format.
The first slide shows that the content in this email scales beautifully; everything is still readable.
The second slide shows an example of how the email footer would look on a desktop/tablet and how the content stacks slightly differently when opened on a mobile device.
The third slide demonstrates that even if the user has images turned off in their email client, that the email isn't completely a bore to look at. There are coordinating colors and descriptive alt tags that show up even if images don't.
The fourth slide goes into depth about several different tactics used to optimize this email.
Key Results: Responded quickly to a metric we had that most customers are now opening their emails on mobile devices. After the successful roll-out on Birthday Express, we also implemented the same changes on 2 other retail sites.
Design: K Lanza
Copy: L Batty
Art Direction: M Velez
Project Description: As a way to diversify the costume business for BuyCostumes.com, a special experience was created for Dress-Up. The look and feel of this landing page is more juvenile than the usual BuyCostumes audience; it was meant to target parents who have young children. With subtle nods to info graphics, the design was meant to capture the imaginative, educational and whimsical nature of dress-up. Everything was created fresh for this project from the logo (which is a nod back to the BuyCostumes logo) to a sentimental photostyle.
Key Results: Helped boost the costume business around Christmas time by positioning giving dress-up costumes as gifts. This was also one of the first responsively designed landing pages on BuyCostumes.com. Created a photo library of branded images that can be re-used season after season.
Design: K Lanza
Copy: M Baker
Art Direction: M Velez
