In Europe’s fastest-growing global city how can the Portuguese Government make the best use of its iconic national properties?

They wanted to preserve the historical context of these places without letting them become purely tourist destinations.

I was challenged to present unique ideas on how to best utilize these properties while honoring the national values and global reputation of Portugal.

Inspired by my studies of historic community centers and the rich creative culture of Portugal, I designed a profitable cultural institution model that united industries and cultures in a holistic brand. It showcased the unique values of Lisbon and was designed as a hybrid model to activate aligned business and commerce.

I repurposed the most sought-after property the country has and showcased a business model that would highlight the best of Portugal’s culinary, arts, technology, and entertainment while integrating the newest cultural impact leaders coming to Portugal.

The cross-sectional integration model I developed and created tenants for showcased an impressive approach to activating the 10,000 sqm property in addition to serving the local neighborhood around it.

The revenue model was efficient and created unforeseen real estate value. In addition, the press rapidly gained interest and exemplified how this approach would position Portugal as a leader in cultural innovation and preservation. A model many global cities would be inspired by.

Acknowledgment from the Portuguese Ministry of Finance and The Parliament. This project activated policy change toward cultural leasing of government-owned properties for cultural integration and enhancement.

We were challenged to shift the community’s perspective of the Frye Art Museum’s permanent collection, a 19th-century art collection that is required to exhibit by the founders. Our team was asked to come up with ideas to engage returning and new museum visitors to visit an older, previously exhibited collection of work with excitement and high attendance.

We designed an exhibit that engaged not only the local community but a global community by creating a new way to curate. We allowed people to vote on what art should be shown from the collection to create a sense of involvement.

Followers voted via Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Tumblr on which works they would like to see displayed at the exhibit. Each “heart” or “like” counted as one vote. We built a microsite to attract patrons and give them all the relevant information on the exhibit. Once the show was on view anyone could go on a virtual tour of the exhibition through the site, this footage was then archived.

The identity was born out of digital symbology, such as emoticons. One of the exhibition’s hero images was a portrait of founder Charles Frye displayed beneath glass bearing the exhibit’s identity to illustrate the converging of the past and the future. In designing the web experience we used internet blue as a color pallet and set the site within its own graphic frame to mimic the frames found in the exhibition. Within the physical exhibition, the walls are spot-colored yellow to give a vibrant pop throughout the show. The number of hashtags and comments are featured under each piece, and selected comments from citizen curators from around the world were applied to the walls.

At the start of the exhibit, you are faced with a list of over four thousand names of the social media handles of citizen curators from around the world. The concept of citizen curation and the channel by which curators were engaging was applied to every inch of the brand.

The platform attracted over 4k citizen curators worldwide. The winning piece, “Peacock”, had over 60k likes digitally.

The exhibit garnered international press for a local museum. Huffington Post, Wall Street Journal, Wired, New York Times, GeekWire, Artnet, Seattle Met, City Arts, Seattle Spectator, Wall Street Journal, Art Fix Daily, Vanguard Seattle

#SocialMedium was widely considered The Frye’s most successful exhibition.

The exhibition has been taught at a number of educational institutions, including Carnegie Mellon, as a way for art institutions to use new technologies to engage the public.

The objective of #SYA was to de-stigmatize and normalize the act of abortion by encouraging women to speak up about why they had one and how it impacted them. 1/3 women in the U.S. have had at least one abortion. Instead of making accusations or fighting those against abortion, we wanted to share stories and humanize abortion to help change the negative connotations, hate, and policy against abortion.

As the strategist and product manager my team and was challenged with developing a brand and digital site to 1. create a space to capture abortion stories and 2. help those who may feel alienated or misinformed about having an abortion find access to resources and a sense of community. And lastly 3. create a brand and abortion assets that can be disseminated across cities nationally to aid in protests and female gatherings.

Digital design and functionality were essential to the rapid online movement happening. The brand needed to be accessible, feel collectively owned, and easily be able to be carried across many types of formats. Inspired by old protest graphics and women’s rights movements, the brand carried a distinct look and feel that allowed abortion supporters to join digitally and physically.

Our team built a comprehensive website where their decentralized network of supporters could talk about abortion on their own terms no matter where they are. The SYA movement is everywhere, in art, zines, on the sides of buildings, and on social media. This platform is where it can all come together. On the site you can upload a video testimonial, or a written story, download protest materials, shop, donate, and above all, learn so you can educate others. In this era of extreme opposition and misinformation, the SYA site is a digital safe space for real stories.

In order to ensure security against hacking, user profiles, and trolling it was important to embed high-security and easy community publishing reviews for the small team of two running the movement.

2017 Webby Award, People’s Voice — Best Activism Website

Design of Dissent (2nd edition) — Rockport (ISBN: 1631594249)

Honorable Press — New York Times, The Guardian, New Yorker, Washington Post, The Huffington Post, Time, AIGA Eye on Design, IdN World, Seattle Times,

The State of Washington’s history department was tasked to bring its historical documents to the modern world through a digital application. Additionally there as a constraint to ideate something that encouraged touring historic sites across Washington in an effort to activate more dormant cities.

We were hired by Washington State to take on this challenge to invent a digital engagement of historical records through a unique travel lens.

A substantial amount of historical documents had to be showcased to abide by government funding requirements. Therefore we designed trips that would unlock historical references while visitors traveled by car through the state.
We imagined what a new version of a family road trip or historian journey could be when going on a summer vacation. We designed a historical road trip website called, Re-Wa (aka. resisting Washington)

The complex site build included back-end libraries of interactive audio guides, historical artifact photos, and history lessons within a modern, easy-to-use application.

The difficulty of this project was strategizing the ideal content hierarchy, information, and design to not be overwhelming nor hidden. The technological integrations, size of content, and user experience were challenging given the technology and budget constraints, yet the product was celebrated and over 2,000 historical trips are taken annually and marketed only organically as a new way to adventure and learn in Washington.

This model has of digitizing and re-puposing historical artifacts has been showcased amongst other state’s historical associations.

Researchers, students and teachers use the site for educational and research purposes which signifies how new channels create bridges for knowledge transfer.