The Pain Point:

Key pain points on the account stemmed from limited assets, reliance on stock imagery, and a dim social media presence. I saw an opportunity to elevate awareness and strengthen The Home Depot’s partnership with HBCUs. I wanted to change the mantra on content creation.  Moving forward, every new asset needed to instill a sense of community. We needed to raise the volume on the silent struggles many facilities faced with outdated structures.

The Opportunity:

The Home Depot quickly aligned and two weeks later we were in production. I led several verticals to generate content across the nation ranging from commercial shoots, paid media spots, social media engagement, and experiential assets. The end result was a healthy library of assets with real humans, short snackable videos, billboard activations, and long form documentaries. Through honest storytelling, The Home Depot's Retool Your School program became a cultural staple within the HBCU community. Compared to the previous year, we gained 130 million impressions and increased 20% in voter engagement on Retoolyourschool.com. As a result, The Home Depot was able to distribute a total of 227 grants, allocating more than $9.25 million dollars to date. Above all, many HBCUs received much needed support for future students.

Learn More: RetoolYourSchool.com

The NBA Store on 5th Ave in NYC is the league flagship store. This premier NBA destination offers fans from around the world a fun and interactive shopping experience with access to the ultimate selection of basketball merchandise both at the store and online via NBAStore.com’s vast inventory. We were challenged to create key art for the upcoming basketball season that be marketed on their official site and would inspire a display at the flagship store located in NYC.

This key visual with global appeal adapts easily to both the playoffs and finals. “Grab the Glory” is a headline that is engaging and visually dynamic, becoming a key element in this concept that conveys the excitement and competitive intensity around the leagues season culmination.

Pepsi Pop Star is an immersive AR experience where YOU are the Pop Star in your own concert experience! This was a new installation at Hershey Park. Visitors enjoyed 15 minutes of fame through a contactless music video activation, allowing visitors to become a STAR and record their dance performances in private dance pods featuring a digitized and customizable version of themselves generated from a selfie.

Tickets were available to purchase in advanced. Soda fountains were wrapped in branding, digital banners launched, increasing brand awareness. Exclusive merch memorabilia was available for purchase.

The challenge was to reimagine PABST Blue Ribbon’s POS offering by translating the brand’s distinctive values and personality to life through reimagined classics that create an experience. Create brand awareness and trial in the on-premise and experiential by motivating “the do-ers” (non-conformist beer drinkers) to choose Pabst instead of a premium domestic beer in the US (Budweiser, Coors and Miller) and premium imported beer in global markets (Heineken) in casual get-together occasions. PABST is a brand with the courage to redefine POS by finding the harmony between quality, craft and sustainability.

This grouping of POS is catered to people who value experiences over things. Concepts include: Display enhancers such as a popcorn machine and foosball table, barware such as an ice bucket that looks like a paint can and an LED sign that enhances their existing art, and premium items such as custom pins.

Client: Pabst Brewing Company

Industry: Spirits

Responsibilities: Design, Ideation

Stoli® Vodka, the original premium vodka with uncompromising quality since 1938, was expanding its award-winning portfolio with Stoli® Crushed, a fresh, young premium expression of Stoli® Vodka with real fruit juice, to attract younger millennial consumers. As the first premium imported vodka brand to enter the fast-growing 'real fruit juice' spirits segment with Stoli Crushed, we were challenged to create a disruptive key visual and 360 campaign to propel Stoli® Crushed into the market.

We were provided with key art by Stoli’s ATL agency and were challenged with finding innovative ways to illustrate fruits, freshness and splashes to create new key art that would appeal to a younger audience and support a 360 campaign. Additionally, the existing shipper case design from Europe had a craft feel, so we explored that realm as well.

1.8MM was budgeted for marketing support. Print advertising, OOH, PR and social were incorporated into the programming to drive efficiencies. A very successful 3-tiered permanent display rack came out of this launch. A larger-than-life citrus juicer crowns the top of the display, emphasizing fruit and flavor. This cylindrical design works well from all angles. The bright headline wraps each shelf. The “Stoli® Crushed” logo is boldly stamped onto the citrus press.

Deliverables included custom fruit illustrations for bar mats, bottle glorifier, drink coasters, 50ml bin, beach towel invite, hitchhiker, decals, shelf talkers, case bins, header cards, ice bucket, recipe cards, packaging, billboard and case tucker.

Client: Stoli® Group

Industry: Spirits

Responsibilities: Design, Concept, Copy, Tactical execution, Semi-perm display

While hair is a path to acceptance of self and by others, it is easier said than done as Black & Latinx members of the textured and curly community face a lack of representation on their individual journey and bias that limits their freedom of beauty driven self expression. Maui Moisture is hair care and styling products for every wave, curl and coil with the mission to put consumers' best curls forward.

Tasked with establishing an authentic campaign for this brand, starting with the key art, we positioned Maui Moisture’s visual and verbal presence around the freedom of transformative moisture for all. We created 2 fresh takes on the KV. The first offers a cheeky CTA, Aloe, Beautiful, referring directly to the #1 ingredient in Maui Moisture and the natural beauty of our customers. The second, When your curls flourish so do you, place your natural beauty and hair in the center of lush foliage, filled with all of Maui Moisture's ingredients. Both incorporate the brand's DBA's; the teal color, the aloe pattern and juicy aloe chunks.

The client was swooned with, Aloe, Beautiful, and the way that the CTA was created by "shampoo," adding to the playfulness and ease—it was the cherry on top.

These are a variety of ads designed for Stoli®.

Client: Stoli® Group

Industry: Spirits

Responsibilities: Design, Concept, Copy

What is TRÁPIKO? The illegitimate love child of deeply rooted traditional Dominican culture + contemporary hip-hop way of life.

TRÁPIKO is a lifestyle movement that fuses Latino urban culture with cultures from around the world: The Cultural Crossover. Music is TRÁPIKO’s heartbeat but it’s also expressed through dance, fashion, slang and more. It’s a noun but also an adjective. It’s a style and a form of expression. It’s a representation of culture and a hub where these culture-makers unite.

Founder Brisselli Rojas, an entrepreneur in entertainment, approached me to create visuals and branding that were in line with her manifesto and resonates with her diverse targeted audience, consisting mainly of African Americans and Latinos. The minimally designed logo allowed for the brand to be easily recognizable and effortlessly applied to solo cups and merchandise. The consistent visuals presented on all digital platforms created for TRÁPIKO quickly solidified the vitality of the brand and gained the trust of a new audience, selling out tickets for its premiere.

TRÁPIKO debuted on December 12th 2015 in Brooklyn New York, bringing together over 200 people and featured DJ's and performances. Back by popular demand, it's 2nd installment in Manhattan was bigger and stronger with added performances, a comedic host, dancers and branded merchandise, this time in Manhattan.

Client: TRÁPIKO

Industry: Lifestyle and Entertainment

Responsibilities: Logo, Branding, Photo Retouching, Illustration, Ideation, Some video Creation

Photography: @liferoundhere

Sweet, young love. Fresh linens on a cozy. Sunday morning. Love is in the air.

We were challenged to create a warm, on-brand key visual for the brand’s best selling power period. Inspired by Cavicchioli’s golden vine-like bottle design and red accents, we created a key visual that feels soft, bright and approachable. The felt-textured heart adds a touch or warmth.

A full POS suite was delivered, including a window display. This key art was shared with our cross-functional teams and applied to digital and social platforms. The program was soo successful that we ran a “Toast To Mom” campaign with full supporting POS.

These key visual concepts were part of a nation-wide 360° launch program, including radio, events, BTL POS and a custom illustrated tank top. Additionally, Stoli featured a spread in the iconic Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition that hit newsstands worldwide on February 13th, 2018.

The challenge of the key visual was to incorporate both Stoli’s Premium Vodka and debut their new Stoli Crushed line, while incorporating model Samantha Hoopes as the new face for this campaign.

A handful of headlines and concepts were explored with other models as placeholders in the comps, until a photoshoot of Samantha and the product were completed by the Stoli team in LA. Stoli selected the headline, “The vodka that mixes well, but never blends in," as the complimenting headline for Samantha. Ultimately though, as the Me Too movement evolved, Stoli decided it was best to be bold and not use the key visual with Samantha Hoopes but rather Stoli’s iconic red key visual, with a firm headline paying homage to our current times.

Client: Stoli® Group

Industry: Spirits

Responsibilities: Art Direction, Illustration