People steal. Gasp!
People steal and then resell at a reduced rate. Double Gasp!

Piracy costs Microsoft around $9 Billion (with a b) a year. We are all realists, this number won’t go to $0. But how can we slow it down? If you can just slow down a 9 billion dollar leak, you can save hundreds of millions of dollars.

We didn’t want to create a campaign of discouragement, we wanted to create a campaign of encouragement. To encourage whats right, not discourage whats wrong. We wanted to connect the windows brand to absolute certainty and quality. But we weren’t speaking to our own culture, we were speaking to 7 distinct cultures: Russia, Poland, Turkey, Thailand, Indonesia, Mexico, and India.

The objective needed to be simple: To build brand awareness and preference of Genuine Windows. The idea was equally as simple: 100%

Its not just Windows 7, its 100% Genuine Windows 7.

The Deliverable
A campaign style guide that each region could use to create a region focused campaign that would also marry up to the other regions for a unified voice.

The Campaign
Originally, the campaign was centered around a simple icon. An icon that could that would be recognizable in all the regions, and complete the 100% story.

A couple of mock up ads showing the original idea

It evolved into something with a little more personality, that could also speak to each region through photography. Keeping to the original idea of an “icon”, we still wanted something simple that didn’t try to say too much, but spoke simply and quickly, and the icon idea evolved to this:

Original ad mock ups used in the style guide

An option for a gridded poster, showing multiple images

Ultimately the campaign style guide was sent to the regions. We monitored and remotely directed the work that was being done. We knew would couldn’t foresee everything, so this part of the effort became very interesting as we started receiving interpretations of the campaign from each region.

In the end, the regions created some great work, relevant to their cultures and environments.

OOH billboard in Poland

OOH billboard in Poland

OOH billboard in Poland

OOH billboard in Poland

OOH Thailand subway ad placement

100% Genuine campaign landing page.

Agency: Razorfish
Creative Director: Frederik Averin
Copy writers: Kurtis Glade, Stacy Bolt
Art Direction: Patrick Kernan, Kaycia Ogata, Michael Showell

The Microsoft.com homepage get hundreds of thousands of hits each day. Razofish was asked to come along side an internal group of Microsoft creatives and redesign/concept the homepage. With the impact that Microsoft.com has with so many visits each day, this was an enormous task. I was a part of an elite group of Art Directors, Creative Directors, Business Analysts, and User Experience team to tackle the homepage head on. The timeline was short. From the time I was put on the project to the time final creative had to be delivered to development was less than 3 weeks. Below you will find two of my concept renderings. Unfortunately, neither of these were chosen for the final design.

I felt honored to work with such a great team on a project with such reach.

Agency: Razorfish
Creative Director: Bob Vandehey
Sr. Art Director: Kaycia Ogata
Sr. Art Director: Nicole Yates
Sr. Art Director: Michael Showell
UX: Michael Betts

the "safe" option

the "risky" option

Ahhhh, the KIN. From the Spring of 2009 through the summer of 2010, I was all KIN all the time. Razorfish was tasked with creating an online marketing portal that would serve as both a brand and marketing hub for KIN the brand and the product. This ended up being an interesting line to balance. But in the end, I think, as  do others, the site was a great online experience. I was happy to have been an integral team member in creating almost every page of KIN.com.

Below you will find some more screen images, as well as spec work that never got to be produced (and even an early comp, that never came to be).

KIN.com recently won 4 awards at W3

2010 W³ Awards of Gold Winners
Website Features – Home Page
General Website Categories – Marketing

2010 W³ Awards of Silver Winners
Website Features – Video & Motion Graphics
General Website Categories – Visual Design

Agency: Razorfish
Creative Director: Sharon Greenwood
Associate Creative Director: Aaron Johnson
Copywriter: Will Ulbricht
Art Director: Juli Unger
Art Director: Jamie Despres
Designer/Art Director: Michael Showell

KIN.com Homepage

version 2 of KIN.com homepage that was never built

Page Comp of future enhancements to the device, never built

an early rendition of KIN.com before moving to the look and feel above

In association with Wieden + Kennedy, I was on a Razorfish team that took some initial ideas from the WK team, and turned it into an online campaign that supported a centralized web experience created by WK. I was integral in defining the direction the online campaign would take, finding photographers and videographers, as well as doing the bulk of the produced creative.

Below you will find a video case study produced by Razorfish showing much of the creative I was a part of, as well as campaign results. To get an idea of just how much work was put into this campaign, I would encourage you to watch the video. Another video is a 17 min short film produced by DuckDuck Collective. I can’t speak more highly of this group. They produced amazing work on a daily basis. At the end of the campaign, they compiled this short film of all their work. If you have the time you should give it a look.

Lead Agency: Wieden + Kennedy
Online Agency: Razorfish
Creative Director: David Hartt
Copywriter: Will Ulbricht
Designer/Art Director: Michael Showell

2009

Short Film – Levi’s “Go Forth” from DuckDuck Collective on Vimeo.

Take-over of San Fancisco Gate

Take-over of the New York Times

Take-over of Myspace

Microsoft had a significant plot of show floor at the 2009 Macworld Expo. We were asked to maximize the space, as well as show off new features of Microsoft Office for Mac 2008. In the end we concepted the space architecturally, skinned everything, and created collateral pieces, such as a show booklet and digital signage for up coming speakers . My role was as a designer, supporting and supplementing the work by a Senior Art Director.

Agency: Razorfish
Creative Director: Bob Vandehey
Senior Art Director: Erik Helmer
Designer: Michael Showell

Close up of Word station at Microsoft Booth

Close up of Powerpoint station at Microsoft Booth

Close up of Entourage station at Microsoft Booth

A full page take-over, this lived on multiple sites for one day. I worked on the concept of the take-over, as well as the design and final animation. I also helped direct a small photoshoot to garner artwork for the button down jeans. This take-over also lived alongside smaller standard banner videos with other talent such as Perez Hilton, Jamie Bestwick, Estelle, Walé, and Robert Buckley.

Agency: Razorfish, Portland OR
Direction: Sharon Greenwood, Razorfish
Copy Writer: Will Ulbricht, Razorfish
Design, Motion: Me
Design: Matt Brown, Intern, Razorfish
Talent Video: EVB, San Francisco

Fall 2008

Initial concept artwork

online campaign
razorfish | 2008

Levi’s asked us to create an online experience focused specifically on their female consumer. We thought it would be best to reach those real women by creating a campaign with real women. We found three real women with different body types to be our main spokeswomen for the Levi’s women’s line. In the end, we created this website (UPDATE: Unfortunately, this site has since been taken down).

The video above shows the website and other campaign elements such as banner ads, partner programs, etc. It was created by Mr. Paul Anders, one of the best and most radical motion designers around!

While primarily working as a Designer on this project, I was able to participate in all aspects of the project, from initial brainstorming all the way through to art directing the development team.

The site took two awards from W3:
Gold for Websites: Shopping
Silver for Websites: Fashion

It also won two awards from WebAwards for Fashion Standard of Excellence and Retail Standard of Excellence.

Creative Director: Sharon Greenwood
Designer/Art Director: Michael Showell
Designer: Nora Travis
Copy Writers: Mandi Middlestetter, Carl VanderZanden
Web Development: Ben Brewer

Landing page, woman selector

Rollover action

Loading page

Detail page

online competition
razorfish | 2008

When Levi’s partnered with Bravo to be apart of one episode on Project Runway, Levi’s also tasked us with coming up with an online campaign that would continue the challenge of the episode. Ultimately we came up with the name “Project 501″ and created an online version of the Project Runway episode’s challenge. The website allowed anyone to register and submit a design for the online challenge or critique other submissions. The website created quite a buzz, garnering 20,000 registrants and over 2500 design submissions. It was also featured on the front page of the Oregonian’s Business section. The image you see here gives you a sense of the overall design of the site. We tried to give the site a very hands-on textured look. We even hand drew an existing font we wanted to use in the site. A couple of jeans were sacrificed in the making of this website.

razorfish | 2008

Coors Light was promoting a new innovation with a 24oz cold activated can. At a certain temperature, the mountains on the can would turn blue, letting you know it was cold enough to drink. Our team was tasked with creating a short animated promotion that would make the viewer aware of this new innovation. I helped concept, story board, design and animate the final video.

Direction – Tim Sproul & Jeff Paul, Razorfish
Motion Direction – Paul Anders, Razorfish
Agency – Razorfish, Portland OR
Audio – Digital One, Portland OR.

PNCA | 2007

The goal of the project was to create a cover for print magazine’s inaugural issue about up and coming designers. The only theme given was the print tag line: design culture youth. Given the vagueness of the theme, I took some liberties and created a collage that I, as a youthful individual within the design culture, thought was interesting.

I chose to experiment with pattern making while also commenting on a design culture that will attach new meanings to old styles.

Design Professor: Brian Acevedo