These models were created to explain toilets; to visually articulate the essence of these all-important contraptions. One model included the core mechanical components at play. The other cut out everything except the most basic inputs and outputs involved.

Blue + yellow = green.

One game to rule them all. This project dropped a game layer on the classic in-store retail model for the thousands of stores and associates across the nation. It was a great experiment in serious games. One that challenged the line between work and play, leveraged the nuances of human motivation and organizational psychology, and illustrated the power of re-framing the mundane.

Roles: Lead experience designer, strategy lead, research lead
Responsibilities: Wireframes, concept docs, research synthesis

Launched a new brand, business model and communications strategy for a new offering from Chicago's top independent publisher. Curbside Concierge Services is an à la carte model aimed to empower writers and creators to get their words to the world by connecting them with only and exactly the tools, services, and production power they need; a new model for a new era of publishing.

Client: Curbside Splendor
Roles: Brand & business model strategy + site design & development

Consulted on business strategy and innovation opportunities in healthcare for a leading industrial organization at the center of the world's largest democracy. The approach included immersive research into the healthcare system as well as navigating the logistical and political realities of doing business in India. Alongside a cross-functional team, concepts were evaluated, solutions prototyped, and a roadmap was built to present viable options for disruptive business.

Client: Godrej & Boyce
Role: Strategy & design consultant, research lead, team lead

Select icons are from The Noun Project.

Allen Edmonds makes some of the finest men's footwear in the known world. An overhaul of their site included the addition of a 'Shop the Look' section to accompany AE's expansion into apparel, a simplified presentation of the company's core offerings, and additional functionality upgrades to support its growing ecommerce business.

Company: VSA Partners
Role: UX design lead

At the heart of the global food crisis is the growing gap between our ability to create food and our demand to consume it.

These network diagrams were created to help visualize the interrelated elements within the system, based off a 2010 Hubb Spiertz publication in Science Direct. The sheer quantity of nodes, coupled with the myriad of connections between them, illustrates the complexity of the challenges that lie before us.

All icons are from The Noun Project.

A research study of Chicago hotels and the journeys of their guests revealed a troublesome phenomenon. At predictable intervals throughout the check-in/out process, a surge of anxiety coupled with a lack of grounding or place was observed. It was a regular occurrence; a state of limbo where guests felt lost, in-between worlds.

These models were created to visualize, analyze, and communicate these states of "temporary homelessness," which occurred when hotel interactions with guests were at their lightest while guests were furthest from their rooms. The provocative title and quantitative presentation of common scenarios helped convey the issue and its implications.

Avery Dennison needed a new public face–one that reflected its broad industry reach and international footprint. The result was a redesign across its family of sites; a system that presented a unified global brand while providing flexibility for each business unit to tell their own story.

Company: VSA Partners
Role: Lead UX architect

Popular as it might be, professional football in America is greatly misunderstood. At its core it is a great dance, a dizzying ballet of millions of variables clashing together through the course of a game, a season, an era. It is simultaneously brutally simple and wildly complex.

These two models were created in its honor, and to help illustrate of the more intangible forces inherent to the sport. The first model shows the cascading higher-order goals at play. The second is a basic mechanical feedback loop applied to the game, hinting at the complexities involved in both game and season management.

Payments powerhouse First Data needed a recharge to keep up with the rapidly changing transaction and commerce industry. With most of the company's business conducted instantly and invisibly, a clear and accessible brand narrative and value proposition proved critical to survival. The solution was a full-scale responsive site overhaul designed to speak directly to partners and clients–a digital footprint optimized across viewports, devices and customer touch-points.

Company: VSA Partners
Role: Lead UX architect + strategy

An in-depth study of residential doormen revealed a range of insights about these oft-overlooked gatekeepers of our urban dwellings. Through interviews and observation, everything from the make-up of their personalities to the rhythms of their days to the relationships they juggled were assessed and modeled in an effort to understand their work and their role in our communities.

The goals of the study included improving the quality of physical environments and work-life balance, identifying business-related opportunity areas, and illustrating to property management how critical doormen are to the overall presentation of their buildings and day-to-day experience of their inhabitants.

Brand strategy and identity design for the Pink Energy Group, a Chicago-based startup committed to providing a sustainable and viable alternative to urban waste disposal. The organization worked with local food producers, grocery stores, restaurants and breweries to collect food waste and convert it back into energy, closing the loop in the circle of life for consumables.

Client: Pink Energy Group
Roles: Brand and communication strategy + visual design

Assorted work for the Fortune 50 client included concepts for Smarter Planet, client-facing ideation tools, and a robust, international brand center, designed to share the legendary IBM way.

Company: VSA Partners
Role: Lead UX architect + strategy

An online center for one of the world's most iconic brands was created in close collaboration with visual designers and client partners. The resulting digital experience evangelized Harley-Davidson's mission and educated thousands of dealerships, marketers and partner agencies across the globe. Strong brands require strong support.

Company: VSA Partners
Role: Lead UX architect + strategy

The seller-facing experience of the Sears online marketplace was a simple concept, but had to be massively scalable: merchants signed up, set up products, managed and fulfilled orders and made money. Within a year of launching the number of items on Sears.com skyrocketed tenfold, significantly boosting the retailer's bottom line and building many relationships for the company along the way.

Company: Sears
Role: UX design & research lead for seller-facing experience

This project re-imagined the organizational structure and long-term business strategy for one of the world’s most iconic news outlets. It was an exercise in management and consulting–goals of which included financial survival, sustained cultural relevance and quality of journalism, and overall continued leadership in an industry that's changing by the hour.

After meticulous assessment and analysis of the state of news and media, the solutions recommended included accelerating the digital transition over a 7-year plan and the creation of an internal "Revolutions" team, tasked with aggressively pursuing innovation across content creation, distribution and revenue-generating fronts.

Truck adapted from The Noun Project.

A exploratory project examined ways in which libraries might remain relevant in an increasingly digital age. Souvenir was one of many concepts aimed at keeping travel and the memories of patrons alive through the rich resources that libraries offer. An underlying philosophy involved in the offering was armchair-to-airplane travel; the idea that traveling is a state of mind as much as a physical journey, accessible through the library and the airport alike.

Client: Chicago Public Library
Roles: Research, concepting, visual design, prototyping, service design

Even the world's largest and most controversial company values the power of primary research. Usability & qualitative research for Food & Recipe and Photo Centers included interviews, lab studies, and in-field ethnographies–all leading to actionable and often-surprising insights about online and offline behavior involving these two high-trafficked businesses. From those, design recommendations and strategies were presented forth, helping chart the digital future of the empire itself.

Company: Walmart.com
Role: Research + analysis lead

A collection of diagrams that have served as communication tools across various digital and non-digital projects. They vary in complexity and context, but all at one point served as critical boundary objects; artifacts created to facilitate the understanding of a current or future state of the world. Such visuals are essential to the design process. They help us gain alignment while advancing the conversation, ultimately advancing project themselves.

Steel is steel. And commodity shops aren't typically known for their beautiful and user-friendly websites. Nor their ability to differentiate themselves from the competition. Ryerson, a leading metals distributor, wanted to change that. A revamped online presence was the result, which presented a fresh look for the company as it expanded its business globally.

Company: VSA Partners
Role: Lead UX architect