My last hoorah
at McCann

My last project before I left the agency world was a big one that I am quite proud of, and at the time a defining point in my career. While at McCann Detroit I spent more than a year of it re-designing GM.com. It was not my first re-design of an international company’s website (I had just finished up re-designing the Aldi Website for McCann just months before), but it was a very important one to me as so many of my family members had worked for GM, including my father. 

Mobile First

As a Senior Digital designer it was my role to work directly with the GM clients alongside my Digital Creative Director (Brandon Klebba) and Associate Creative Director (Cecilia Piechura Lazar) to lead the re-design of the website, with the mobile UI being my specific focus on the project.

I collaborated with another talented Senior Digital Designer (Stephen Gemignani) who’s focus was the desktop view, and together we were able to push each other to put forth a truly responsive website that looked slick on all devices.

CGI / Renderings

Aside from the mobile design and UI, I was also responsible for working with our 3D/CGI partner RTT to create new renderings specific for assets on the website, as well as direct physical photoshoots around the GM headquarters for new website content.

Animation & Illustrations

Early on in my career I spent alot of time working in Adobe Flash and After Effects. Creating web animations during the transition from embedded .swf files to html5 and svg/css animations has given me a vast knowledge of various techniques to achieve browser friendly motion on websites, and that expertise was used extensively on the "About GM" section of the website that was essentially an animated infographic of the company's mission statement and impressive stats.

The end of an era...

It was an amazing experience as I had previously been responsible for creating content for the live gm.com website, so I was finally able to put a ton of ideas I had in my head about how to display that content in a much more engaging and most importantly, user friendly way.

The clients we worked with on a daily basis were the best ones I have ever had working for any client and it was bittersweet as I handed off the final PSD as it was also the final project I worked on before I decided to go full-time freelance and buy a one-way ticket to Asia.

There are times I miss the catered lunches, expensive furniture and cornhole tournaments, but looking back I honestly miss the talented team I was a part of and the creative brainstorms and work that would result from them the most, and I am just glad I was able to leave the agency world on a high note.