Project Description:
XQ Exchange is an annual conference that brings together educators and members of the XQ community. Over 250 attendees gathered to share knowledge and experiences, school builders gained valuable insights, practical strategies, and resources related to brain science, project-based learning, fundraising, and more. Participants fostered a sense of community through collaborative sessions and sharing their school transformation stories. Prominent figures like XQ founder Laurene Powell Jobs, CEO Russlynn Ali, Marc Eckō, Congresswoman Jahana Hayes, BMike, storytellers from The Moth, and numerous others led engaging discussions.
Design:
Originally set to be held in New Orleans, the conference's visual theme was designed to mirror the city's vibrant, festive, and colorful atmosphere. At the heart of this identity were three unique collages created by Charles Wilkin, symbolizing the conference slogan: "Exchange Journeys, Exchange Knowledge, Exchange Actions." Based on this artwork, we created a visual language for all conference materials using elements from these collages. Two weeks prior, a hurricane devastated the area and the conference was moved to Washington D.C., meaning all materials had to be rebranded.
My role:
Art Director and Lead Designer
My responsibilities:
Collaborated with the Chief Creative Officer and Creative Director to shape the conference's overall identity.
Conducted research to help identify illustrators responsible for the main artwork.
Recruited, supervised, and art directed another designer, collaborating on the creation of promotional materials, signage, email content, workshop materials, and presentation materials.
Oversaw design needs, collected feedback, and obtained approvals from various XQ team leads.
Maintained communication with vendors and prepared production files for the final distribution.
Project Description:
To help communities design schools relevant for the modern world, XQ put together a comprehensive guide, designed to advise state policymakers on the necessary steps to ensure that every high school effectively equips students for the future of work. The guide offers practical examples and recommendations for policy and initiative implementation and includes a collection of evidence from innovative high schools across the nation, illustrating the potential for transformative change
Design:
Initially outsourced, the book's design shifted in-house, with me taking over as lead designer. Our main challenge was to make this information-heavy guide user-friendly, so we used large headlines, photos, quotes, side sections, data boxes, and illustrations. Additionally, we created state-specific data sheets to showcase alarming education statistics like graduation rates and college eligibility. These sheets were included as folded bookmarks in the printed version and available for download on the project's website.
The cover illustration was created by the late Kim Jung Gi, while the illustrations inside the book were made by Bodie Chewning, Robert Leecock, Sarah Myers, Jeff Smack and Jason Tirendi.
My Role
Lead Designer
My Responsibilities:
Collaborated on the design of the overall guide with the Creative Director and guidance from the CCO.
Worked with editorial team and a data analyst to design the templates for both versions of the state data sheets
Recruited and oversaw a designer responsible for creating the remaining data sheets for all 50 states.
Communicated with print vendor and prepped production files for final distribution
Project Description:
Social media platforms serve as a primary avenue for XQ to connect with its community. The content varies from educational and inspirational to entertaining and celebratory. After a few years of outsourcing our social media creative to an external agency, our in-house design team assumed control with the aim of completely revamping the visual identity.
Design:
The previous designs primarily relied on photography, primary colors, and repetitive layouts. Our idea was to introduce a more playful and contemporary look that would appeal to our student audience. We introduced a set of templates featuring vibrant, diverse color palettes and geometric design elements. Additionally, we focused on campaign-specific designs to ensure each new initiative, while aligning with the overarching brand guidelines, had its unique identity. One of the biggest campaigns I created was Monthly Trivia - an engaging series of Instagram stories and posts featuring questions on month-specific topics, encouraging user interaction and learning.
My Role:
Lead Designer
My Responsibilities:
Developed weekly designs as requested by the Growth Team, responsible for all social media content.
Oversaw approvals from the Creative Director.
Co-art directed external vendors when outsourcing campaigns.
Project Description:
Our task was to rebrand and design a new website for the Academy of Animation in Bratislava. At the time, the school's website was over two decades old and required a modern makeover to appeal to a younger demographic of prospective students. This request was particularly timely as it preceded the second round of applications for the upcoming school year. The launch of the new website resulted in a significant 30% increase in the number of applications received.
Design:
Our primary objective was to achieve a modern, playful look that would reflect a space of learning and creativity. While adhering to the school's original color scheme of black and orange, we introduced yellow to harmonize with the school's logo and teal as an accent color to infuse vibrancy into the warm palette.
Regarding style, we aimed to emphasise the school's artistic character, opting to incorporate hand-drawn elements throughout the website. A dedicated designer made a set of these elements, which I then used to create various compositions and photo treatments.
In addition to design, we had to rethink the structure of the site since it was not user-friendly. We improved site navigation by categorising information into two distinct sections: "I want to study" and "I'm a student," ensuring users could easily find the content they sought.
UX/UI and development management were led by Tom Miciak, with illustration elements contributed by Taylor Suchy.
My Role:
In collaboration with another designer, we began by rethinking the site's overall architecture, brainstorming the desired look and feel, and conducting initial explorations. Following our client meeting, we decided to pursue the direction I had proposed, therefore I assumed the responsibility for design and branding, while Tom concentrated on UX/UI and development.
My Responsibilities:
Collaborated with the UX/UI designer to restructure the site's overall architecture.
Developed a new branding system for the site.
Provided guidance to a designer regarding the desired artwork for the creative elements.
Utilized the provided artwork to compose headers for each field of study.
Designed unique icons for each field of study.
Created the layout for the landing page, fields of study, and competitions pages.
Assisted in migrating archival content from the old site to the new web CMS.
Project Description:
As part of their mission to revolutionize high school education, XQ collaborates with state and district school systems whose leaders embrace the concept that high schools should be more adept at preparing students for college, careers, and the future at large.
The first statewide initiative, XQ+RI, was the result of a collaboration between the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) and XQ. The subsequent public-private partnership, XQ+NYC, emerged in conjunction with The New York City Public Schools and XQ.
As part of these initiatives, XQ hosted several Design Days, offering space, resources, and guidance to students, teachers, and community members who collaborated in brainstorming the transformation of high school design. Teams then submitted their proposals, and the most promising ones were awarded planning grants to further develop their ideas into comprehensive redesign proposals.
Design:
For the state-specific materials, we drew inspiration from each state's distinctive color palette, and the logos served as official symbols of these partnerships. The data walk posters and workshop materials featured vibrant colors and clear data visualizations, facilitating a user-friendly data journey tailored to each state.
My Role:
Lead Designer
My Responsibilities:
Developed the overall identity under the direction of the Creative Director.
Collaborated with the state and local partnerships team to curate data walks for their workshop spaces.
Designed invitations, handouts, workshop materials, and posters for all design day sessions.
Worked closely with the data analysis team to create accurate data visualizations.
This collection showcases a series of infographic-based projects I've designed during my tenure at XQ and within my personal portfolio.
Data Walks:
Data walks play an important role in various XQ initiatives, serving as a means to shed light on the critical state of education in the United States. These experiences revolve around visual storytelling, where a series of posters feature statistics tailored to the specific local community they are displayed in. Attendees can walk through, take notes, and initiate discussions based on their reactions to the presented data. The poster sets include quotations from teachers and students, providing firsthand insights into their educational experiences. The design consists of simple visualisations and bright colours to best navigate the audience through this journey.
XQ Social and Data Materials:
Recognising the significance of data visualisation, XQ frequently incorporates infographics in their blog posts and white papers to help the reader understand these content heavy documents. They also use data storytelling in their social media campaigns with photography, illustration, and iconography. The illustrations featured below were created by Narin Kietikul, while the icons are a mixture of Noun Project and self-made designs.
Tennis theory charts:
As a former tennis player, I wanted to create a tennis-themed book which included a set of chapter openers, each showcasing a different chart on technique and theory. I used stock-photography with overlaid colors, simple line drawings and brief descriptions.
Project Description:
This coffee table book was a school project based on Single Pole Houses by a Danish architect, Konrad Wojcik. Designed while he was still a student, his project introduces a potential solution to the problem of deforestation via self-sufficient architecture; a house built of 100% sustainable materials with no footprint on nature.
Design:
The book's design drew inspiration from Wojcik's technical drawings, integrating forest photography to highlight the natural-human symbiosis. The layout alternates between expansive color spreads featuring his project drawings and text-focused pages, where details from these drawings accompany the text. Photography utilized in the book includes a mix of Wojcik's 3D renderings and stock images.
Role:
Designer - School Project
This is a selection of logos collected from work, school, and personal projects throughout the past couple of years.
Urban Knights Nation:
This logo was commissioned by the athletic department at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco for the official fan club of AAU athletics. It draws inspiration from the college jersey aesthetic and the "Urban Knights" mascot, a crowned lion, integrating the crown with the AAU logo in the final lockup design.
Tartina:
Tartina is a family-owned dessert shop located in Bolivia. The logo features a letter "T" enclosed within a crest, symbolizing the familial nature of the business and conveying the premium quality of their products.
Everence:
While interning at SALT Branding in San Francisco, this logo was a finalist in the selection process for Everence, a unique tattoo company incorporating human DNA into its ink, founded by a former NAVY Seal who wanted to help people facing separation from loved ones find an intimate way to stay connected. The symbol, centered around the letter 'e,' signifies this enduring connection through an infinite loop.
Ragnhild:
Ragnhild is a Swedish fashion brand established by designer Jenny Ragnhild Johansson. The logo features a mirrored 'R,' symbolizing the repetition of the designer's initials. It was silk-screened on the inside of a range of jackets and used on all dresses, T-shirts and tags.
Akila:
Akila is a home decor brand created for a school project. The idea behind it involved forging a partnership between a U.S. store and small Cameroonian businesses to help support their local economy. The mark was inspired by the African Adinkra symbol of “two close friends” as a representation of their partnership.
WTA:
This logo was created as a school redesign project for the Women’s Tennis Association. The objective was to move away from the pink and purple palette, opting for a less gender-stereotyped teal color scheme. Additionally, the design incorporated a dynamic tennis ball mark above the WTA initials.
Niterie:
a wine packaging school project inspired by the allure of the Moulin Rouge. The design of all three labels draws its inspiration from the vintage theater and cabaret show posters. These bottles were exhibited at the 2015 Academy of Art University Spring Show.
Vestals:
an album cover school project for a Bay Area artist Lisa McGee. Drawing inspiration from the dream-like music and inaudible lyrics, the concept centered around hypnagogia—an exploration of the transitional state between wakefulness and sleep. This state is often marked by hallucinations induced by blurry objects and distant sounds. The textures were created by altering and dissecting a single portrait, and lyrics from one of the songs. The aim was to capture the sensation of a blurred reality that the music conveys.
Vestals, Forever Falling Toward the Sky: http://www.last.fm/music/vestals
Grannie’s:
a milk packaging school project. Drawing inspiration from the cozy ambiance of "grandma's house," I developed a cross-stitch theme incorporated across the product range. Each bottle features a label, tag, and fabric top with a distinct stitch pattern. The logotype was created by hand to achieve a more personal and nostalgic feel.
YO-YO MA & XQ BLOCK PARTY:
XQ partnered with one of its board members, world-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma and his Culture in Action project, to organize a block party in downtown Oakland. This free event offered a diverse mix of classical music and hip hop, showcasing local bands, activists, and community members coming together to celebrate culture. A collective of young local artists collaborated on six art installations, which were donated to local public schools.
Design:
The main idea was a celebration of the local community, therefore I used the “Oakland tree” as the graphic in the background and kept the colour palette green and yellow, which are the Oakland city colours.
My role:
Lead Designer
My Responsibilities:
• Developed the overall event identity under the guidance from the Creative Director
• Communicated with Yo-Yo Ma's team for design direction and approvals.
• Executed all deliverables, including stage signage, street posters, flyers, social media posts, email invites, and food stand signage.
• Coordinated file hand-off to the production company responsible for the event space.
TAKASHI MURAKAMI & XQ AT COMPLEXCON:
In recent years, XQ has been an active participant in ComplexCon, an annual festival that celebrates pop culture and entertainment through concerts, exhibitions, and discussion panels. Founded by XQ board member Marc Eckō, the founder of Eckō Unltd. and Complex magazine, these activations featured a competition and collaborations with renowned artists, including Takashi Murakami. In the case of this partnership, XQ created a sticker pack featuring Murakami's artwork, which attendees had the opportunity to get autographed by the artist during the event.
Design:
The concept was to blend Murakami's art with the high school theme, therefore the sticker pack was designed in the form of a school notebook, with his iconic flower texture as the background. The style was then applied across all associated materials.
My role:
Lead Designer
My responsibilities:
• Created all materials under the direction from the Creative Director and Marc Eckō (CCO)
• Responsible for design of the main sticker pack, competition flyers, instruction posters, social media posts and XQ bus signage.
XQ SYMPOSIUM’18:
XQ Symposium is an annual conference for educators and the XQ community. In 2018, nearly 150 people from across the XQ schools gathered in San Francisco to celebrate and learn, with a focus on advancing equity through innovation. Discussion panels were led by XQ CEO Russlynn Ali, Co-Founder of Twitter Biz Stone, XQ Board Member Geoffrey Canada, along with numerous influential voices from the education sector.
Design:
The primary objective in design was to embody the conference theme: "advancing equity through innovation." The Chief Creative Officer partnered with the XQ Editorial Team to create a mathematical representation of this theme in the form of an equation, which I then designed and implemented across all event materials.
My role:
Lead Designer
My responsibilities:
• Developed the overall identity under the creative direction of the CCO and the Creative Director.
• Designed all swag, signage, presentation, print, and workshop materials for the event.
• Oversaw design needs, feedback, and approvals from individual XQ team leads.
• Coordinated with and managed the file hand-off to the production company responsible for the event space.
CARNEGIE SUMMIT:
XQ and the Carnegie Foundation announced a partnership to catalyze and co-construct a new educational “architecture” to support secondary school transformation across the United States at the 2022 Carnegie Summit.
Design:
The materials for this event were a collection of deliverables I created throughout the year, assembled to serve as a representation of XQ's presence at the Carnegie conference.
My role:
Supporting Designer
My responsibilities:
• Part of the design team responsible for all conference materials under the direction of the Creative Director.
• Designed 13 oversized signage walls, each representing one of the XQ schools on the conference campus.
• Created a data walk wall, a one-pager detailing XQ Institute, and a year-in-review book showcasing XQ's progress over the past year.
• Created various workshop materials for design sessions.
