My approach to creative direction, design, & development
revolves around both communicating clearly and
leading effectively; Be it print design, architecture,
or motion graphics, I'm a champion
of clarity over clutter. I like to think
that this approach translates well across
media boundaries. Questions like "What is
this creative supposed to achieve?" should
always come before "How can we make
this project look nice?"
The process of visual design and creative marketing does not so much involve reproducing
the world around us, as it does
improving it. Successful design solutions
serve to communicate ideas and concepts.
For example signage that clearly
labels a restroom in a culturally and
language neutral manner is a good
example of design enhancing a space.
While a piece of fine art hanging in a
museum can convey feeling and meaning
to the viewer, the “Push” sign on the door
prevents them from looking foolish on their
way into the gallery.
The skills of a strong creative director need
to expand from the finite world of colors
and grammar to include the over-arching
marketing direction. If one cannot ensure
that the final product fulfills this very sentiment
the creative will undoubtedly fail. To
achieve this goal, one must understand the
specific ying-yang balance of copy and
design. He who favors one aspect over the
other will earn the scorn of the neglected.
Next is to perform the vital analysis of
necessity, and from there move to form,
implementation and performance all while
keeping the necessity of the user, the conversion
power of the creative, & the overall
projection of the brand an a-priori focus.
Reality Bug
ART DIRECTION, DESIGN, PROJECT MANAGEMENT
A highly interactive, fully dynamic, content driven community based Reality TV show digest aimed at providing a content rich user experience.
Take a tour of the live site and demo the functionality and member area here:
Adorable
ART DIRECTION, DESIGN, PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Adorable.com is a community driven site built for caregivers and their babies! Fully dynamic and provides a highly customizable user experience.
Take a tour of the live site and demo the functionality and member area here:
Webmasters Direct
ART DIRECTION, DESIGN, DEVELOPMENT
Webmasters Direct, an established and well known affiliate program recently underwent a complete redesign from the ground up.
The second was the affiliate area used by affiliate sales members whom where logged into the WD site, which can be viewed here:
CamNation
ART DIRECTION, DESIGN, DEVELOPMENT
Cam Nation is the first multi-channel social networking site allowing users all the amenities of MySpace with integrated real time webcam features.
The Cam Nation project entailed designing and developing two primary site sections, the first of which was the 'public' or 'not logged in' section which can be viewed here:
The second was the affiliate area used by affiliate sales members whom where logged into the Cam Nation Affiliate site, which can be viewed here:
Seek Mobile
ART DIRECTION, DESIGN, IDENTITY
Seek Mobile is an interactive mobile marketing company providing high-end mobile monetization applications to enterprise level clients.
Identity/ Brand One Sheet
Interactive Corporate Site Composition
Domain Players Club
BRANDING, DESIGN, PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Domain Players Club, the reputable and long time established domain monetization service has recently undergone a complete redesign.
DPC was a complicated back-end development used to manage over 100,000 domain names spread across thousands of users for the use of traffic monetization. You can view a small selection of template designs here:
Broadcaster
ART DIRECTION, DESIGN
Broadcaster has a new fresh face. The concept and page designs were created for the relaunch of the newly expanded Broadcaster.com site.
Broadcaster.com was a complicated VOD based site that required both extensive front and back end architecture work that yielded a solid product that is on track to go public in the summer of 2007.
Lovercash
ART DIRECTION, DESIGN, DEVELOPMENT
Lover Cash, the long time dating affiliate program has undergone a complete face lift with fresh new feature offerings and a robust back-end.
You can view a sampling of template designs created for Lover Cash here:
IntaRev
ART DIRECTION, DESIGN
Custom full-size print ads created for IntaRev, the parent company of several successful financial based online billing and credit processing companies.
You can view the final print ads here:
Lava Lounge
ART DIRECTION, IDENTITY DESIGN
Custom identity design for one of the hottest new online communities in 2006, LavaLounge.
You can view the final approved identity design here:
Exclusive Plugins
ART DIRECTION, INDENTITY DESIGN
Custom identity created for the online content provider Exclusive Plugins in 2006 as part of a larger overall corporate launch and marketing strategy.
You can view the final approved identity design here:
First Beat Media
ART DIRECTION, INDENTITY
First Beat Media is an online publishing company specializing in community based social networking sites. The FBM identity was key to the larger marketing strategy.
You can view the final approved identity design here:
Pixelontology
ART DIRECTION, IDENTITY DESIGN
The Pixelontology brand was created for a small design firm in early 2003. Utilizing an organic theme, the final brand design represents their larger 'organic' vision.
You can view the final approved identity design here:
Celebrity Gossip
ART DIRECTION, PROJECT MANAGEMENT
CelebrityGossip is a cross between a digg and meme style site with content updated every five minutes as gossip is posted on the various celebriy blogs.
Take a tour of the live site and demo the functionality and member area here:
Unsigned
ART DIRECTION, PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Unsigned.com was established with one goal in mind: To listen to the independent music artist/band/fan and create the ultimate online music portal.
Take a tour of the live site and demo the functionality and member area here:
Mrs. Nevada USA
ART DIRECTION, DESIGN, DEVELOPMENT
A small informational site created for the Mrs. Nevada United States Pageant held yearly in Las Vegas, Nevada.
This site is currently under active development, however you can preview it here:
Movie Pass
ART DIRECTION, DESIGN, DEVELOPMENT
Movie Pass is a premier video-on-demand (VOD) provider of mainstream entertainment content spanning across multiple genres.
The Movie Pass guidelines required a number of template pages to be produced for a wide range of content. You can view sample templates here:
Adult Love
ART DIRECTION, DESIGN, PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Adult Love, the internets first adult oriented dating site has recently relaunched with a completely new feature offering and fresh design.
Adult Love was a ground up project which required significant back-end development as well as a plethora of template designs which took over 90 days to complete. You can see sample template compilations here:
Real Swingers
ART DIRECTION, DESIGN, PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Real Swingers, the first fully featured social networking site exclusively for the swinging community was built from the ground up.
The development process for Real Swingers consisted of a two part process. Because of the depth and breadth of the project we first mocked up a complete site skeleton in black & white .pdf form in order to aide the development and template design process:
The second phase of development required actually putting the final product together by combining the back and front end developments with custom made semantic XHTML/ CSS templates:
XBiz World
ART DIRECTION, DESIGN, DEVELOPMENT
In 2004, XBiz World launched as the printed version of the long established web based B2B publication catering to the adult business community.
XBiz and XBiz World, subsidiaries of AdNet Publishing was a multifaceted project which required both extensive print and web development to be done between 2003 & 2004. You can view a number of samples from this project here:
You can also view print and tshirt designs for this project here:
As well as the full XBiz World Magazine design and layout here:
Ease Billing
ART DIRECTION, DESIGN, DEVELOPMENT
In 2006, Ease Billing launched as an exclusive online billing service provider for the ever growing online e-commerce community at large.
The Ease Billing project required a customized branding and a basic set of functioning template designs which can be viewed here:
Ball'r Records
ART DIRECTION, IDENTITY DESIGN
Brand and Identity creation for a small upstart recording label operating out of Los Angeles.
You can view the final approved identity design here:
Jupiter Hosting
ART DIRECTION, DESIGN
As part of the 2005 Jupiter Hosting relaunch, an identity overhaul was an integral part of the process and played a large part in the overall success of the strategy.
You can view the final approved identity design here:
Available Tickets
ART DIRECTION, IDENTITY DESIGN
Available Tickets is one of the newest premier sport and entertainment tickets clearinghouse. This identity design was created as part of their build up to launching publicly.
You can view the final approved identity design here:
ARS Properties
ART DIRECTION, IDENTITY DESIGN,
ARS Property Management was one of the most successful boutique property management firms to come on the scene in the fall of 2006.
You can view the final approved identity design here:
Stratacurse
PRODUCED, DIRECTED, EDITED
Stratacurse was a short film project conceived, written, and edited as an purely academic exercise in under 48 hours on a non-exsistant budget.
You can stream a web version of the final Stratacurse video here:
Please contact Mike Mayo for any and all issues related to this website.