Portfolio / AIDEN DUFFY / Sr. Designer This portfolio has been prepared for Space Exploration Technologies with the Sr. Graphic Designer role in mind.
660 Flower Ave, Venice, CA 90291
[email protected] (206) 794-0558
Style Guide: Amazon Web Services In 2010, I built the first brand Style Guide for Amazon Web Services (AWS). A style guide is a critical tool that any growing organization needs to ensure brand standards are adhered to whenever collateral is produced. As there were hundreds of people across multiple teams building customer-facing collateral, the style guide needed to cover more advanced topics like ‘how to talk about the company and products’ in addition to the basics of logo usage and the color palette. In order to identify the needs of the style guide, I met with leadership from Sales, Marketing, PR, and Engineering to understand each team’s requirements and set expectations for the guide we would produce. Since it’s creation, hundreds of copies of the AWS Style Guide have been distributed internally and used by external vendors producing collateral. In order to keep it up to date, my team regularly solicited feedback from internal and external users and made updates about twice a year.
AWS Style Guide Logo
How not to use the AWS Logo 1
Do not: Distort the AWS Logo
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Do not: Overlay Graphics or Text
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Do not: Add Tag lines underneath Do not: Place on a Patterned Background
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Do not: Remove/edit the blocks
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Do not: Use just the blocks
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Do not: Alter the color
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Do not: Use the Logo Using the TM
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aws.amazon.com
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aws.amazon.com 4
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AWS Style Guide Presentations
Presentations All external-facing presentations should be created using the AWS_Deck_Template.potx. There are several options for slide layout, so make sure to choose the layout best suited to the content you are presenting on any given slide.
Title Slide Title Slides should be used only at the beginning of the presentation. This slide should include the presentation title and each speaker’s name. Adding the date is optional.
Important! “Presentation Theme” should always be set to “AWS_Deck_Template” “Theme Colors” Should be set to “AWS-Style-V2” “Theme Fonts” should be set to “Office Classic 2 (Arial/Arial)” “Theme Background” should be set to “None”
Presentation Fonts
Body Slides Body slides are built from white and usually contain an AWS logo. Include the logo unless an graphic, diagram, or table interferes with the composition of the slide.
Arial Bold for titles Arial Regular for copy
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Portfolio / AIDEN DUFFY / Sr. Designer
Creative Theme: ‘Whiteboard’ Cloud computing services are inherently challenging to represent visually. Many companies default to using stock imagery of servers, but this is counter to the paradigm shift cloud computing represents as customers should never have to think about the servers - instead the cloud enables them to focus on building on top of on-demand resources they never need to see. In 2012, I set out to develop a creative theme that could be used across all customer-facing assets representing AWS. My goal was to abstract away from the physical technologies used in the cloud and, instead, focused on the value they deliver to end users. The concept of ‘whiteboard’ was a natural fit, as it allowed a lot of flexibility with abstract concepts and paid homage to one of the main ways customers become familiar with cloud computing concepts: sketching on a whiteboard.
‘Whiteboard’ style image depicting ‘multi-device mobile gaming’ [Designed by Alec Catalano]
EXCERPTS FROM ‘WHITEBOARD STYLE GUIDE’
In order to enable effective use of the ‘whiteboard’ style across our global marketing organization, we produced a style guide with detailed instructions about how to build imagery.
Whiteboard Style Guide sections included: ◄ HOW TO APPLY HATCHING USE OF COLOR ►
Portfolio / AIDEN DUFFY / Sr. Designer
Branding
Branding & Creative: AWS re:Invent Global User Conference In 2012, the AWS Marketing team decided to host the company’s first global cloud computing user conference. Although several smaller-scale events of up to 800 people had been hosted, an event of this size - over 7,000 attendees - was unprecedented.
“Save the Date” landing page design (2012)
With this new scale, came the desire to brand the experience heavily and differentiate it from both other user conferences and the smaller events previously hosted by AWS. The challenge here was to create a feel that was unique and hip in the eyes of our fast-paced, high-tech audience without compromising our brand commitment to being straightforward and simple. After several iterations on the branding and creative in direct partnership with senior leadership, we landed on a clean, type-based logo and chalkboard-themed imagery to evoke the innovative and collaborative nature of the cloud. Note on contribution: I was the lead designer in 2012 and lead creative direction for the event in 2013 and 2014, with designers on my team building the creative.
Portfolio / AIDEN DUFFY / Sr. Designer
Branding & Creative: AWS re:Invent Global User Conference Wayfinding signage design (2012)
Portfolio / AIDEN DUFFY / Sr. Designer
Branding & Creative: AWS re:Invent - 3 years in AWS re:Invent grew from 7,000+ attendees in 2012 to 13,000+ attendees in 2014. I’m proud of the evolution of the creative over the three years I owned creative direction for the event. Customer feedback has continually reinforced that we met our goal of being unique and hip while retaining a straightforward, simple message.
PHOTOS FROM AWS RE:INVENT 2014
In addition to creative direction in 2014, I sourced, hired, and guided the photographer through the conference.
Portfolio / AIDEN DUFFY / Sr. Designer
Creative Theme: ‘Sketch’ By 2014, the design team had pushed the boundaries of the ‘whiteboard’ creative theme and were ready to take the style to the next level. The underlying objectives of the ‘whiteboard’ theme - scrappy and abstracted from physical technology - remained viable, but we felt a new level of sophistication could be attained by evolving the look and feel. ‘Sketch’ was designed to embody the constant iteration that’s made possible by an open, flexible, and scalable platform. Images are often amorphous and generally abstract, rather than literal, depictions of concepts. Images have ‘unfinished’ edges, with lines extending beyond the concepts depicted to show that there’s always room to adapt and grow. I did all creative direction for this creative theme and the hands-on design work was completed by Marla Moore - a junior designer on my team. All images you see here were built by Marla. The style is still in use today at AWS.
‘Sketch’ style image depicting ‘multi-device mobile gaming’
Portfolio / AIDEN DUFFY / Sr. Designer
Creative Theme: ‘Sketch’ - Solutions imagery
Web Applications
Desktop Virtualization
Disaster Recovery
Media
Email & Calendaring
Life Sciences
Portfolio / AIDEN DUFFY / Sr. Designer
Web Design: Responsive Homepage In mid-2014, I led a project to redesign the AWS homepage. I collaborated with the Product Marketing team to obtain guidance on upcoming messaging goals and establish priorities for the page’s content. From there, I engaged with Digital Marketing to set performance goals for both conversion and engagement. With the messaging goals in hand, I rendered wireframes for review. As the majority of Product Marketing Managers were busy preparing for AWS re:Invent, I wrote a draft of the content myself and provided it to them to iterate on. With the updated content, I fleshed out the design, created hi-fi mockups, and partnered with development to get the page live. Although I was the primary designer on the project, I received visual design support from Marla Moore and UX design support from Eddie Lee. We were able to launch the page as an A/B test and saw a significant improvement in performance overall - increasing both conversion (rate of completed signups increased by 7.1%) and engagement (clicks on promotional content increased by 48%). This homepage design and messaging structure is still in use today on aws.amazon.com.
Portfolio / AIDEN DUFFY / Sr. Designer
Web Design: Responsive Homepage Messaging Framework to Final Design (Select slides)
MESSAGING FRAMEWORK
HERO (Top content - custom per audience ► Prospect: Overview, Free Tier offering, Local events Customer: [Targeted content], Launches, User conference)
ANNOUNCEMENTS / PROMOS
PRODUCTS & SERVICES Overview of all Products & Services Interactivity provides access to deep dive content
ENTERPRISE OFFERINGS
ENGINEERING HIGHLIGHTS
SOLUTIONS Overview of what you can build with AWS Interactivity provides access to deep dive content
CUSTOMERS High profile customers from primary audiences: Enteprrises, Startups, Public Sector
GLOBAL INFRASTRUCTURE Overview of all data centers worldwide
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Web Design: Responsive Homepage Messaging Framework to Final Design (Select slides)
MESSAGING FRAMEWORK HERO (Top content - custom per audience Prospect: Overview, Free Tier offering, Local events Customer: [Targeted content], Launches, User conference)
ANNOUNCEMENTS / PROMOS
PRODUCTS & SERVICES Overview of all Products & Services Interactivity provides access to deep dive content
ENTERPRISE OFFERINGS
ENGINEERING HIGHLIGHTS
SOLUTIONS Overview of what you can build with AWS Interactivity provides access to deep dive content
CUSTOMERS High profile customers from primary audiences: Enteprrises, Startups, Public Sector
GLOBAL INFRASTRUCTURE Overview of all data centers worldwide
►
Web Design: Responsive Homepage Messaging Framework to Final Design (Select slides)
MESSAGING FRAMEWORK
HERO (Top content - custom per audience Prospect: Overview, Free Tier offering, Local events Customer: [Targeted content], Launches, User conference)
ANNOUNCEMENTS / PROMOS
PRODUCTS & SERVICES Overview of all Products & Services Interactivity provides access to deep dive content
ENTERPRISE OFFERINGS
ENGINEERING HIGHLIGHTS
SOLUTIONS Overview of what you can build with AWS Interactivity provides access to deep dive content
CUSTOMERS High profile customers from primary audiences: Enteprrises, Startups, Public Sector
GLOBAL INFRASTRUCTURE Overview of all data centers worldwide
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THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
Wednesday, August 8, 2012 | A9
Visual Design: ‘Thank You, NASA /JPL’ ad For NASA/JPL’s Mars Rover ‘Curiosity’ landing, the technical team used AWS to capture and store images and metadata collected from the Mars Exploration Rover and the Mars Science Laboratory missions. As this was a risky landing due to Curiosity’s large mass relative to previous rovers, our leadership felt it was an achievement worth celebrating publicly. I was tasked with designing and getting a full-page ad placed in the Wall Street Journal within a week. I also had to figure out a way to prevent it’s publishing if something went wrong with this risky launch.
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Thanks for Thanks for daring mighty things daring mighty things
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Congratulations to NASA and the Jet Propulsion Lab for the Successful Landing of the Mars Rover Curiosity
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Congratulations to NASA and the Jet Propulsion Lab for the Successful Landing of the Mars Rover Curiosity
Never having worked with this newspaper before, I reached out to partners on the Amazon Kindle Advertising team, who helped negotiate the rate and agreed to run an ad in place of AWS’s in the event anything went wrong with the rover landing. I then contracted a design agency (MRM//McCann*) proficient in preparing ads for large-run newspapers like the Wall Street Journal. I worked closely with the VP of Marketing and Senior Vice President on the creative and copy for the ad, presenting dozens of versions over the course of a few days. MRM//McCann then optimized the ad for placement in the paper and prepared the package. Fortunately, Curiosity’s landing was successful and the ad ran on page A9 on August 8.
Amazon Web Services is honored to support the mission-critical cloud computing applications of government agencies and enterprises Amazon Web Services is honored to support the mission-critical across the galaxy. Learn more at aws.amazon.com/NASA cloud computing applications of government agencies and enterprises across the galaxy. Learn more at aws.amazon.com/NASA
PHOTO CREDIT: NASA/JPL-CALTECH PHOTO CREDIT: NASA/JPL
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MAGENTA BLACK CYAN YELLOW
*Initially, MRM//McCann also created options for the ad design, but I was working on designs in parallel and we selected an option of mine early on and had them focus on the technical aspects of the handoff.
Portfolio / AIDEN DUFFY / Sr. Designer
Branding & Web Design: wizdom lab Recently, I’ve taken on a selection of freelance projects. Although these are smaller projects than the others featured here, I’ve included two to show my work with brands other than Amazon Web Services. ‘wizdom lab’ is a pre-launch startup featuring lifestyle solutions for the quickly growing 50+ market. I partnered with the founder to develop their branding and website.
Discover a new way of living.
Web & Visual Design: Candy Club In recent work for marketing firm 565 Media, I redesigned the first-time visitor email collection pop-up, providing a mobile layout and 6 versions of creative for performance testing. A small project with a quick turnaround, but another good illustration of the variety of work I’m up for.
Portfolio / AIDEN DUFFY / Sr. Designer
Thanks for checking out my work! Please let me know if there are any other types of projects you’re interested in hearing about.
Portfolio / AIDEN DUFFY / Sr. Designer
660 Flower Ave, Venice, CA 90291
[email protected] (206) 794-0558