In the rebranding journey of Westwynd Realty, I had the privilege of crafting a vibrant new brand identity and redesigning their website to create a visually engaging experience. At the request of Westwynd, my task was to infuse life into their brand while incorporating innovative features to enhance user interaction.
For the rebrand, Westwynd Realty wanted to exude a vibrant colourful look to represent the diversity of their clientele, while maintaining a refined aspect reflective of their expertise and professionalism.
The website redesign was a key element of the rebranding process. To enhance user engagement, we incorporated captivating video and transition visuals on the front page, immersing visitors in an interactive story through Westwynd’s manifold services. We also included an interactive map feature that showcases Westwynd Realty's impressive portfolio of rental properties. Prospective tenants can easily explore available options, while landlords gain a powerful tool to attract high-quality tenants. We also redesigned the sophisticated client login through which landlords can manage their properties, and tenants request maintenance and other services, as well as build community through a localized blog.
By combining a lively visual aesthetic with innovative features, the reimagined brand identity and website embody the commitment to excellence that defines Westwynd Realty's success. The new website is currently under development, as it includes a robust backend database for managing Westwynd’s homes, but you can view a walk through to the right.
Explore the presentation live at Prezi Awards
Health issues facing men are oft-overlooked in society today due to long-standing social norms, which is why the Canadian Men’s Health Foundation was established in the first place. By the same token, fund raising for the Canadian Men's Health Foundation involves quite a bit of education. To this end, former CMHF president Wayne Hartrick and I created an interactive presentation to walk stakeholders and the public alike through the health problems that men face, and how the CMHF aims to help fix them across Canada.
Because there was so much information to present, we used the dynamic presentation tool of Prezi to create an interactive journey with a plethora of information available in any order it was needed. Together, we worked to create, likely, one of the densest Prezi's ever, with 100's of pages of information, stats, infographics, reports, history, and research documents, all available at your fingertips in an intuitive manner.
For our efforts, we drew the attention of 'Prezi' themselves, and actually ended up winning the 2019 'Prezi Award' ‘Prezi’ for ‘Best Non-Profit’ for this comprehensive guide to men’s health issues and the CMHF's efforts to combat them! In order to view a legacy version of the the 2019 Public Prezi, please click here, and scroll down to ‘Best Non-Profit Prezi’ category. To the right, please enjoy a walkthrough of the most recent Corporate Prezi.
work at V7 Entertainment, Inc.
- Team Lead
- Game Designer
- UI/UX Designer
- Art Lead, 2D & Texture Artist
- Branding & IP Creation
English Pup is an educational game-app for kids just beginning to learn English. Children get to explore a fully 3D world and play fun mini-games while walking their puppy. They will and learn English words through listening recognition exercises, interacting with characters, animals, and objects in the world, and entertaining puzzle, matching, and game activities.
A Personally Championed Passion Project, Taken Up Voluntarily on the Side of Regular Duties, Which Would Become V7 Entertainment's Most Successful Game Series
English Pup was a side project I personally took from prototype to a market, working with various interns and one dedicated programmer*, during my time at V7 Entertainment, Inc. The entire project took under a year, as was done ad addendum to my primary role as UX/UI lead for the company's main title. It would then go on to spawn a series of three more App titles, making it the most successful property created by V7.
From Prototype to Launch, I Took a Rag-Tag Team of Interns, Students, and Only One Full-Time Employee, and Launched the Game to the App-Store in Under a Year
An opportunity came up during my time at V7 to lead my own project when we were awarded a few intern students and a project group** from our alma mater school, the Centre for Digital Media. Following potential business connections to China, I was asked if I could make an educational game with these resources. I made prototype in Flash, and got the green-light. I designed some basic vocabulary reinforcement games based on my experience teaching English abroad in Korea. These games, situated within a 3D world that kids could explore, and learn vocabulary in, with a cute puppy protagonist, would prove to create a new, immersive, and entertaining educational experience.
The Original Version Went on to Generate Investment and Spawn Three More Titles, Making it the Most Successful Series Produced by V7 Entertainment
This original version has provided the foundation and proof for a dedicated production team to be created and funded. The team has since completed three complete new versions of a crisper, tighter, more expansive, and much more complete version of the game. Though I was unfortunately laid-off due to company budgeting, my original game was used as the framework to create the new titles, with much of the original game-play design staying intact. Originating from a mere side fascination, this property I feel like the proud parent of, went on to become the company's most successful IP.
DOWNLOAD THE APP:
English Pup: Intermediate Level
*Leto Yang, now a programmer at Hot Head
** Including Jasmine Jia, now a sound designer at Microsoft, and Jessie Gao, now an artist at Kabam
Freelance project.
Website overhaul and relaunch for the Canadian arm of high-end Italian cappuccino machine brand, San Remo. San Remo is an internationally recognized and distributed brand of premium quality, commercial grade espresso coffee machines, refined for generations. The company is based in Italy, and represented internationally by independent companies. I was approached by the recently established Canadian arm of this international brand to make a sleek, modern, and seductive Canadian presence and online catalog for these exquisite machines. The challenge was to create a unique and attractive site that stands up to quality of the already established UK, Australia, and American arms of the brand. Using the absolute best of the brand collateral available from Italian H.O. as inspiration, I developed a sleek, minimalist showcasing the best thing I had to work with: beautifully shot close-ups and hero-shots of the elegant machines, in all of their full-screen glory. I was able to achieve a site even more attractive than the other national arms, but still very much in line with the overall brand. The client was very happy.
VISIT THE SITE!
Natalie Tin Yin Gan
This was a very fun project, as a portfolio for a performance artist and creator, I was able to get much more creative than with my more corporate clients. That in no way means I had free reign with creative director, as Natalie is an extremely particular, exacting, and amazing artist who has a precise vision of what she is doing through her practice. It was awesome collaborating with her to creative a unified vision, capitalizing on my suggestions while making sure her very sophisticated artistic objective was front and centre. But since she makes such objectively beautiful work, you better believe I made darn sure that was front and centre as well! Because there was so much incredible video and photo documentation of her work available, I leaned into this heavily, creating visual intense background, often moving video loops, with a minimalist foreground complementary of the artist’s own austere aesthetic sensibility. Ultimately, it created a beautiful design play that is probably my favourite site I’ve created yet.
UI/UX Designer / 2D Art Lead / 2D Animator
My primary role while at startup V7 Entertainment was UI/UX lead, and the company's main project was an arcade style hockey game under the NBC/Universal Slap Shot license.
I created the menus and UI, 2D background animations, loading screens, and 2D animated cutscenes for the story mode of the game.
I created information architecture, wireframes, conducted user testing, created concept art, presentations, layouts, style iterations, as well as menu trees for iterative design decisions throughout the production process.
Using our home-brew production pipeline that I was able to help augment, I created extremely lightweight yet stylistically consistent UI solutions across the entire front end and gameplay, as well as a storymode system with a complete series of manually rotoscoped 2D cutscenes.
I was responsible for working closely with each game engineer to achieve a consistent look across each aspect of the game. I also had to work creatively and innovate within the constrained toolset of Flash 2 to create all UI features, meta-game features, and a library of dynamic, animated story-telling cut scenes which fell under 50 KB!
Unfortunately, after four years of hard work by the team, Slap Shot, such as it was, would not see the light of day due the licensing issues with NBC/Universal, and was repurposed into an original IP, ‘Bush League Hockey’, sadly having to sacrifice all of Slap Shot themed art and UI to annals of time.
All content is owned and copyrighted by NBC/Universal, all rights reserved.
Canyon Gold & Gravel owns the rights to mine 60 privately-owned acres of on-site, high-quality river gravel and alluvial gold. Used to make concrete and other products, this gravel will help fulfill a global shortage that plagues the construction industry. To create the look for this site, I went to earthy source, incorporating stone and nature motifs, colours, and textures throughout with an austere minimalistic design emphasizing the geology through geometry. I also created maps and infographics to emphasize CG&G's main competitive advantage, a direct pipeline from their gravel source estimated to be worth $1B, with a straight-shot of only 152 km highway to booming Metro Vancouver & Fraser Valley construction hub. Check out the website here!
MyWorld is an educational game designed to teach teens "internet literacy", including best practives and safety precautions when surfing the net. It is currently in use by the Canadian Schoolboard , primarlily in Eastern Canada.
CDM Industry Project with MediaSmarts
- Art Lead
- UI/UX Lead
- Artist
Awarded in "Highly Commended" Category of 2011 MEDEA Awards
"My Learning Strategies Students loved it. They found it very interactive and it asked high level questions and delves deep into the subject of media and internet literacy. Very cool graphics and navigation."
- Teacher, Ottawa Carleton District School Board, Ontario
"My students thought it was great – so did I! They were really into all the aspects of the site and got the hang of it really quickly. It lent itself to great classroom discussions before and after using it. "
- Teacher, Ottawa Carleton District School Board, Ontario
"MyWorld exceeded all of my expectations and the students loved it."
-Teacher, Nova Scotia
My Role: UX and Art Direction to Simulate a Teen's Real Life Experience Online, in a Somehow Engaging Manner
My role for MyWorld was to create a user experience and art direction to effectively deliver a game design written by our client, MediaSmarts', in-house writer. We were given set of instructions on certain experiences student players were meant to go through, such as posting to Facebook, or researching a topic online. In order to deliver such experiences, I decided to create the look and feel of a real operating system, but with a colourful and stylish overhaul to keep the (somewhat dry and everyday) subject matter as appealing as possible to the target audience. I decided to create sub-environments within the main OS environment based on pun take-offs on the real-world equivalents we were meant to be simulating, such as Facebook and Google. Thus were born 'Space Face' and 'Googolplex'.
After the Initial Phase, the Client Hired a Co-Worker Programmer* and Me to Bring the Game to Launch, and We Did
To create a follow-up to their successful Passport to the Internet educational game for teens concerning digital literacy, the non-profit MediaSmarts Organization approached the Centre for Digital Media to hire one of their student groups. As my first UX and art-direction role on a project of this size, I was extremely fortunate to please the client contact with my first prototype, and then iterating upon that to produce a sleek and refined, fully realized version of the original idea. The client was so pleased with the work from myself, the artist, and a co-worker*, the coder, that they opted to hire us two over the summer to complete the project. I completed my work by the end of summer, and the programmer was hired on contract for a few months to complete it entirely. The game was sold to the Canadian schoolboard later that year.
VISIT THE GAME PAGE!
* Jeunessa Cheng, now a programmer at Kabam
In the creation of the Encanto Potash website, I embarked on a journey to showcase the company's commitment to the sustainable solution mining of potash and its potential to address world hunger. By leveraging valuable insights gained from an interview with the CEO, I meticulously crafted an educational platform that weaves together visual storytelling, captivating video montages, and engaging infographics.
The Encanto Potash website offers an in-depth exploration of how the company's sustainable practices will contribute to addressing world hunger.
Through a user-friendly interface and captivating visuals, the Encanto Potash website empowers visitors to understand the importance of sustainable potash mining and its potential to make a meaningful difference in combating hunger worldwide. It showcases how the company's sustainable "Solution Mining" process will play a crucial role in addressing world hunger by revitalizing crops across the globe.
Desert Mountain Energy Corp. (TSX.V – DME) is a forward-looking resource company actively engaged in the exploration and development of Helium and Noble Gas properties in the U.S. Southwest, with its executive offices in Vancouver, Canada. Currently, the company holds +100,000 acres of land in Arizona, the world’s best address for Helium.
To highlight the significance of DME's helium claim, I knew I would have to educate the public on the significance of helium in so much of society's technology today, from hard drive assemblage to Google's Project Loon, as well as the supply shortage facing America and the world today. To this end I created a centrepiece infographic explaining the multiple uses of helium, as well as educational sections of the site, utilizing the dynamic imagery of this diverse technology. For the site design, I utilized the beautiful warm imagery and colours of the desert, the desert photography of the project, and impactful all-cap typography of varying weights which contrasted the imagery well.
Contract work with NextPhase Strategy
- Website
- Branding
- Social Media
A sleek redesign and branding re-tightening for an existing company that needed a facelift. To create a strong look for the re-launch, I decided on a hot orange contrasted with cool purple colour scheme, that naturally played off the hues of the landscape in Argentina where the company primarily operates.
Contract work for NextPhase Strategy.
An investment firm dealing in a variety of lithium properties and diversified investments, such as Buda Juice chains, AIS Resources is a very successful company, but design-wise, it was a challenge to find a central focus to tie it together. I decided on futurism and progress, as the central unifying aspect, as lithium properties (with application to electric cars) represent the majority of their investments. I placed a visually attractive portfolio of their diverse investment projects front and centre, so that visitors could visually grasp the breadth of what AIS has to offer. And to educate people on the potential of lithium, I created images linking the alluring blue salt flats of lithium exploration to a beautiful, futuristic images of blue-lit electric car plugs and blue-hued metropolises.
VISIT THE SITE!
Contract work for NextPhase Strategy.
- Website
- Social Media Branding
Canandia is a botanological grower of premium unique cannabis strains. The challenge for Canandia was to tell the story of their product, without showing the actual product at all, since recent Canandian Health Ministry guidelines dictated that cannabis plants may not be physically shown in any marketing material. Therefore, we decided to make a video for the website's top header in which you see the product's journey from a greenhouse, to a botanological lab, to a dispensary's storefront.
Another challenge was to accurately represent Canandia's target market, which would include not only end consumers, but dispensary storefronts, and medical physicians. To achieve this, we created used images of people representing these demographics throughout the website and social media branding, creating a feeling of community surrounding the Canandia product. Finally, to create the look of the soon-to-open direct storefront for interested investors, we created mockup packaging for the different classes of product, complete with animated stat bars seen on many popular cannabis-seller websites.
Contract work for NextPhase Strategy.
- Logo Branding
- Website
The design challenge with Parallel was to find a visually exciting way to brand what could end up looking, essentially, like many other African mining companies. To set this company apart, and represent the exciting potential of their operation, I looked to the landscape of Burkina Faso, the location of their land-claim, for its beautiful, natural, and earthy colours to draw from. I then created a unique design of the recognizable Africa continent mass using a vibrant mosaic of this colour palette.
For the imagery of the site, it was easy to draw on the beautiful photography of the region already available. But, to tie it back to the company, I pieced together a collection of the disparate images of their own various equipment and camps provided by the client. I amalgamated and colour-corrected these images into one unified landscape image and placed it underneath a beautiful Burkino Fasso sky to extend the colourful look I had established for the brand.
VISIT THE SITE!
Art Lead, Artist & Animator, Game Designer, Flash Animator, Video Editor, Voice Actor
"[Esoterica America] strikes a nice tone between raised-eyebrow cynicism and starry-eyed credulity; plus, it’s artistically quite gorgeous, and only costs a couple of quid. A genuine one-off.”
– Tom Hughes, The Gaurdian
“Ambitious and vast mystery RPG adventure … This is truly special. Frankly, absolutely brilliant.”
– DIY Games
"If Katamari Damacy shot up on Drain-O while Deadly Premonition slipped a hand under it’s skirt you still wouldn’t get half the ‘f#cked up’ that Esoterica America delivers in the first two minutes of play"
- Justin Talks to Himself
"...kept me visually enraptured throughout gameplay.”
- GamingTruth
My role on Esoterica America was to help create a game out of dense esoteric script. The original plan was a point and click adventure, but inspired by the script, I pitched we create an isometric adventure, with meditation-based action sequences, and esoteric puzzle sequences. I settled on a strong visual style employing stark black and whites, inspired by the animated feature Renaissance, and the esoteric black and white tile scheme famous to Masonic halls. The result: one of the most uniquely strange and interesting games to have ever hit Xbox Live Indie!
Contract work with NextPhase Strategy.
360 Securities and 360 Capital are banking firms that assist emerging companies, entrepreneurs, investors, and clients in raising capital through a capital markets ecosystem. Focused on connecting international investors across the Pacific Ocean to local companies, I chose images emphasizing business, internationalism, and finance. The blue colour tone of course emphasizes security, finance, and investment. For 360 Capital, a montage of international and financial images were chosen, highlighting the five major places the company operates out of: Vancouver, Shanghai, Taipei, Hong Kong, and Singapore. For 360 Securities, a more boutique branch of the company, I chose a strong emphasis on human figures meeting in the foreground, adding a slight animation, to communicate a more human touch.
VISIT THE WEBSITE!
Contract work for NextPhase Strategy.
- Website
- Branding
Elefund Capital’s principal focus is sourcing and providing infrastructure capital for African nations to assist in supporting and building their economies. Sectors in Africa the funding supports and specializes in include: power, resources, utilities, industry, agribusiness, and finance. The typical African Infrastructure Project has large capital requirements spread over 15 to 20 years, involving private / public sector partnerships with state concessions, providing investment guarantees, resulting in significant economic impact garnering large-scale media exposure.
VISIT THE SITE!
Contract work for NextPhase Strategy.
- Website
- Branding
- Social Media Design
East Asia Minerals Corp. is led by experienced professionals with extensive international experience and a broad range of skills in the mineral exploration and mining industry. The team’s skills and experience encompass all aspects, ranging from project generation and early-stage exploration to feasibility studies and mine development. These skills are supplemented by a deep knowledge of the mineral potential of Indonesia and the East Asia region.
Branding, Web Design, Web Development
Contract work with NextPhase Strategy Marketing Inc.
I designed the brand and website for a new company based on property management services targeted solely at medical marijuana based companies, be they in agricultural, research and development facilities, or retail zones. The brief called for establishing a look that had more to do with emphasizing the property management aspect of 420, as opposed to the marijuana aspect (already inherent in the name). Therefore, I created a logo representing the three target property zones, tied together by the shadow of purposefully vague marijuana "type" leaf in the background. For the website imagery, I made a series of montages representing the vastness, diversity, and comprehensiveness of 420's services for the medical marijuana industry; driving home the point that 420 is your one-stop for medical marijuana property needs! I also set them up with a blog for marijuana related news to drive up the SEO.
Freelance project.
- Website Front Page / UX Design
- Style Guide
I was contracted out to redesign the front-page, top-level UI and overall style guide of the Island Honda website. Because of the contract's specific needs for a pure HTML/CSS coded design, I had to re-ramp up on my coding skills for this particular challenge. I ended up creating a design with a nifty ken-burns effect on the top-level sliders, and cool fixed-background effects throughout the vertical scroll of the front-page. Though it was a small project, it was an interesting challenge that nevertheless taught me a lot and pushed my skillset to new areas.
VISIT CURRENT SITE
Web Design, Development
Contract work with NextPhase Strategy Marketing Inc.
I was tasked with creating an impactful visual for a company in the multifaceted business of creating custom sustainable energy solutions. Drawing on their established 'global' brand, I created the imagery of an elemental orb extracting garbage from a pristine earth. As a company looking for investment, I also decided to showcase their existing strong information video front and centre, as it succinctly explains the company's business model and showcases their very enticing services.
VISIT THE SITE
Edge 2 for Maclean Homes
Web Design and Development
Contract work for NextPhase Strategy Marketing Inc.
Maclean Homes approached us to brand and create a website for their new housing complex development in Maple Ridge. Drawing on the success of their previous Edge on Edge development in the same area, also branded by NextPhase, we decided make it a sequel: Edge 2. Targeted at a diverse array of settled-down adults, we created branding to evoke a sense of a warm, nature filled, dynamic lifestyle, with images covering each major age demographic.
VISIT THE WEBSITE
- Corporate Identity / Logo
- Website Design & Setup
Contract work for NextPhase Strategy.
Envoy had been a client since their time as an oil exploration company, but recently had undergone a pivot to primarily representing North American distribution of a popular energy drink in Europe, Louis XIV. Since Louis XIV already had a strong brand, I decided to extend this brand to the Envoy Group corporate logo and website, creating a clean, corporate look, that nonetheless evoked all of the coolness of the Louis XIV energy drink. For the front image, I took the most appetizing image of their drinks, and paired it with all of the awards and acclamations they had recently received, to directly communicate the excitement of the brand.
VIEW THE WEBSITE