Keep your customers engaged! Making your brand recognizable across all platforms is Job One: Seamlessly blend branding, website, digital ads, print, video and social media to create the perfect package.
I learn the goals and culture of the organization and then ask the main stakeholders to surf the web and send me links to websites that not only resonate with them but also sites they don't like. Then I gather up the info on their strongest competitors so we can assess the best way establish their unique, stand-out design system. I focus on intuitive navigation, clear calls to action (CTAs), and clean design with white space and a color palette that reflects the company's culture. SEO is ensured by using the right keywords in headings, meta tags, and alt tags for images.
Through Wicresoft International most of my work was for General Dynamics, Methodist Healthcare System, and Dine Brand Group which owns Applebee's and IHOP. Currently I have created designs for most of my contracts which are in the healthcare sector along with companies that provide environmentally safe processes for reviving oil wells that are 30-40 years old. We strive to educate and inform with meaningful content and strong graphic design, "scroll stoppers."
A well-designed presentation enhances authority and trustworthiness for pitching an idea to your target audience. I am well-versed in using transitions and animations with voice-overs to create presentations for business meetings, academic lectures, and training sessions. They can be set for a single viewer to manually view slide-by-slide or set to autoplay. I can also convert an autoplay into an .mp4 video production for your website or social media.
I'm mainly familiar with creating ads on platforms like Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and LinkedIn which offer advanced targeting options to connect with the right people. There's a lot of flexibility for controlling the budget, adjusting spending in real time, and optimizing based on performance. For HealthMate Media I was able to tweak the video ad for "Healthy Eating" down to 10-11¢ per hit. Facebook has an excellent drill-down system for setting up a target audience.
Branding isn’t just about a logo—it’s about perception, trust, and long-term business growth. Consistency and brand management builds trust—customers are more likely to buy from a brand they recognize and perceive as credible. I think one of the more fun and best brands I worked with was Chuck E. Cheese: great fonts, vibrant color palette and the mouse in the circle alone without title is immediately recognized as Chuck E. Cheese restaurants.
Video is rapidly becoming a valuable tool in marketing directly from a business website and also social media. Website visitors tend to not spend time reading content if there is a short video to quickly explain the product or service. This is easily seen when reviewing web statistics using a video replay of a vistor's path through a website and also heatmaps showing where the visitor spent most of their time on a page. I use Adobe Premiere and AfterEffects for creating high impact videos.
I've been using Photoshop for over 12 years and I still don't know all its secrets. Interesting factoid: George Lucas founded Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) in 1975, and John Knoll and his brother Thomas created Photoshop at ILM. The Knoll brothers sold Photoshop to Adobe in 1989. Much of the technology in Photoshop came from ILM inventing special effects for "Star Wars". It's great for producing illustrations and a perfect tool for editing images that reflect the content it supports.
Print has pretty much been replaced by digital but I have kept my hand in the game by designing and producing LINK Magazine for Counselors since 2018. Print productions such as magazines and newsletters are still a great challenge because when they are commercially printed you have to work within a framework of differing even page counts in order to have a front and back cover. Composing a confined document with content and imagery is challenging but fun. I am an expert with Adobe Indesign.