Brand Identity

The Alchemist Society is a web service and platform for independent game makers find freelance designers for their games.

I crafted this fictional brand as a quick challenge to give presence to niche and need in the market for anyone who is creating a game but lack specific art/design/creative skills to bring their ides to life.

Creative Direction + Web Design + Merchandising

Bellows + Whales is a curated, design-centric home goods shop, including art prints and other thoughtful goods to help elevate your space.

I am passionate about well-designed, intentional goods and home decor. Making a home to me means filling it with beautiful things that are found and hand-made.

I built every aspect of the brand from the ground up including the art direction, identity, product offerings, marketing/advertising for social media and email campaigns. It’s helped me to stay creatively fresh, learning new crafts like candle making, and teaching me a lot of running a retail buisness. One of my favorite offerings on the website is the City Guide—a curated list of favorite shops and eateries on O‘ahu.

Browse the shop for more curiosities. →

Art Direction + Advertising Design + Hand-Lettering

Hawai‘i State Art Museum event coordinator and programming manager tasked me with creating a series of event flyers used in print and on social media.

These projects allowed me flexibility to use various skillsets in typography, layout, and hand-lettering to create unique concepts and designs for each event.

Advertising and Marketing Design + Art Direction

Amazon Fresh is an online grocery and delivery experience. One of the benefits to being a member of this service is the special deals offered to its customers. Fresh Deals is a category on the the Amazon Fresh storefront that offers great deals on all kinds of products ranging from new arrivals to produce.

This project was to specifically highlight produce within the Fresh Deals category and advertise to both Fresh members and non-members alike. I created a large series of advertising graphics to live on the Amazon.com and Fresh storefronts, including social media and marketing.

The concept was close-up images of fruit (grape being the approved and finalized images) in tandem with bold typography and fun, vibrant colors to entice customers to check out the category, but most importantly, sign up for a Fresh trial or membership.

Brand Identity Redesign

Glamazon is an internal employee resource group at Amazon particularly for the LGBTQ+ community. They provide employees with resources concerning community outreach and engagement, development, and recruiting.

I joined the organization and worked on the board as the design lead, providing design support for events, products, and largely, the brand’s redesign.

With the growth and expansion of the organization globally, a unified design system needed to be created.

The custom logotype I created uses soft, round edges to convey friendliness with geometric shapes for a modern and clean look and feel. The LGBTQ+ pride flag colors were reimagined for use within the logo as well.

Visual, Advertising, Marketing, and Production Design

Project Scope: Research, Art Direction, Visual Production, Photo Editing, Copywriting, Localization

Kindle Accessories is a division of Amazon which handles the sales of Amazon branded products and third party vendor products that work directly with Kindle e-readers and Fire HD tablets. Consumers have the option to purchase Kindle and Fire devices with "Special Offers" at a discounted price or opt out at a higher price. Special Offers appear on the lock-screens of these devices promoting new and useful products made for Kindle. These device owners see a variety of products from cases, chargers, warranties, adapters, and many more. These Special Offers provide these consumers with added discounts while shopping directly from the device itself.

Problem. How to promote products to different audiences of Kindle e-readers and Fire HD tablets while maintaining high visual aesthetic and brand voice/guidelines?

Solution. Conceptualization of advertisements heavily relying on research of merchandise to create visuals that reflected the usefulness and success of these products.

Results. Visual placements of these Special Offers on "lock screens" of Kindle e-readers and Fire HD tablets have performed above benchmark numbers in regards to units sold from devices.

My roles:

+ Conceptualized and executed production of advertisements for Special Offers edition tablets and e-readers in coordination with Kindle Accessories marketing and business team

+ Share final assets with global markets while assisting in localization for European division of Kindle Accessories

+ Presentation of assets to senior designers and managers

Brush Lettering

Glamazon is an internal employee resource group at Amazon particularly for the LGBTQ+ community. They provide employees with resources concerning community outreach and engagement, development, and recruiting.

For the Seattle Pride Parade in 2016, I designed a shirt for employees to wear while marching. The design represents the electrifying energy and colorful nature of the LGBTQ+ community.

Photography courtesy of the glamazon organization

Production Design

The Amazon Dash Catalog was a product made in partnership with the Amazon Fresh and Amazon Dash teams. The Amazon Dash Wand was a device that added product into the customer’s Amazon Fresh shopping cart via scanning a barcode or via voice input. The Dash catalog was shipped to Amazon Fresh customers in various regions in the United States where the service was available, which included products within categories like “breakfast” and “dairy.” Each product was denoted by a specific image and barcode in which the Amazon Dash Wand could scan. This catalog ran for a couple years.

My role as designer was to work with the marketing manager for the Dash team and brand vendors to produce this seasonal 40-page catalog. I utilized, maintained, and improved design templates, while sourcing stock photography to fit the season.

Brand Identity

Dr. Patrick Fox is a naturopathic physician in Seattle, Washington. With a rapidly growing following on social media, a brand presence and identity was needed.

I wanted the logo to have a natural component yet also be contemporary and iconographic. The idea of the half circle represents part of a whole, while the tree rings underneath represent the many inner working layers of the body and the many facets of naturopathic medicine.

Follow along on Dr. Fox’s journey in healing and wellness →

Typeface Design

Buckthorne was the name I gave to the display typeface I designed while attending Type@Cooper, a typeface design certificate program at The Cooper Union in New York City. I chose the name Buckthorne which is a variation in spelling from the tree, Buckthorn. Buckthorns are typically considered invasive plants with leaves that fall later in winter, and with small red and black berry clusters. This typeface has the same sense of sturdiness and lasting elements seen in the barb-like ending and serifs. Buckthorne was designed with elegance, foundation, and with a keen fashion sense. Therefore, this typeface works well in editorial spreads, headings for products, or as a logo type.

Brand Identity and Website

KO on the GO is a travel website which features galleries of cities traveled and a shop full of colorful prints by Karen Obrist Photography.

The logomark was made with whimsy in mind, utilizing soft, hand-lettered forms and a shifting baseline. Originally it included an airy cloud and paper airplane, but later simplified to a simple vector.

The website was built on WordPress using a customizable theme by FloThemes. I built the main look and feel of the site, placing images and choosing appropriate widgets to showcase the work in a way that gave the client the ability to mix-and-match, but also play with the design. I also provided light copywriting and editing.

Follow along Karen’s adventures →

Brand Identity

BlueSkye Creative is a full-service creative agency working with businesses within the realm of horticulture. Their services include branding, packaging, booklet/catalog design, photography, and many more.

BlueSkye Creative wanted a specific look and feel for their logo that was organic and hand-lettered. I provided a script logotype that provided a friendly tone with it’s rounded edges and loose forms.

Photography courtesy of BlueSkye Creative

Redesign, Brand Identity, Book Design

Project Scope: Research, Content Strategy, Hand-Lettering, Redesign, Branding/Identity, Typography, Layout Design

The Center for the Book Arts in San Francisco has provided readers with a quarterly journal that highlighted the art form’s most talented artists, their works, and valuable techniques and tutorials for years, however, it is no longer in print. As a revival assignment, I was tasked to create a publication that could be resurrected from the ashes of its original predecessor with a new design that embodied the book arts as well as incorporating my own hand-lettered style.

The new look needed a sense of perseverance, elegance, trendiness, and promotion. The Ampersand logotype was hand lettered while the cover photography was shot by Karen Obrist Photography of an “&” symbol that was laser cut into the book.

Book Design

Project Scope: Book Design, Hand-Lettering, Illustration, Layout, Long Documents

The story of Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie has been a timeless classic since its debut on a London stage in 1904. In 1911, the book was first entitled Peter & Wendy. I used this title to recreate a story that could reach a larger and perhaps older audience.

Resurrecting the title PETER & WENDY allowed for a softer and elegant design approach as well as shining a light on the dynamic relationship between these two characters throughout the story.

Dust Jacket Design and Interior

The three leaves represent the uncertainty of Peter Pan’s existence (make-believe) a common theme throughout the book, in which three leaves were first found under the windowsill in the nursery.