Happy New Year from Me (Well, and SniqueAway)

Design by Amanda Hinds

Clark Gable: Suave, Snique-y or Both?

I think this preview for The Jefferson Hotel on SniqueAway came out particularly well; how can you go wrong with Spencer Tracy and Esther Williams?

Design by Amanda Hinds

Snique-y. Very, Very Snique-y

Yours truly is currently in engaged in the delicious pursuit of luxury travel.

Weeeeeeell, okay, more along the lines of writing about the delicious pursuit of luxury travel. I am now one of two writers (the other being my mentor-in-crime, the spectacularly talented Brian Turner) for SniqueAway, a member-only private sale travel site. And let me tell you: it's fun.

Here are some screen shots from the sales I've worked on. (Click on 'em to make 'em bigger)

The Buccaneer

The James

The Wedmore

Clean Water For All!

I had the privilege of working with the fine people at Stonybrook Water to help them rewrite their website. Now, it's a whole lot clearer — much like their water.

Here are a few screenshots; you can check out the entire site here.

Taking My Cue From a New Website

I've recently had the pleasure of beginning work with Lisa Quackenbush, owner of cuePR. Her dynamic, multi-faceted PR and marketing firm specializes in the design and architecture fields, which, frankly, makes it all the more fun for me! As the first of what I hope will be many projects together, we've created her website.

Designs by Trish Lafleur

Let's Get a Little Poggled

This past winter, I had the pleasure of helping the creators of a new community site restructure the user experience, revamp the copy and refine the content strategy from head to toe (so to speak). The purpose of Poggled.com is to give people an opportunity to get customized bar recommendations, get the inside deal on drink specials at bars they like and bars they would like, and hook up with their friends to head out on the town. Fun, huh?

Below are some shots of the [non-member/non-signed-in] landing page and a few frames from the sign-up process. Cheers!

A Pluck-y Community Integration

When SmarterTravel.com decided they wanted to add a community platform to their sited, they used structure and templates from a company called Pluck. When they wanted those implemented, designed and written for, they used the product team, Kate Orchard (the designer) and myself. Sans an Information Archictect, this involved a great deal of content strategy, not to mention a great deal of fun.

Here are a few select images from the flow. As you can imagine, there are certainly a ton more.

Redesigning a Pup's Domain

The goal redesign of Airfarewatchdog.com was to make the site more user-friendly and intuitive for the would-be traveler. This involved restructuring pages, restructuring use case paths and working with a pretty cute dog illustration. It's tough being me.

Designs by Michelle Carlson and Justin Henry.

It's All Child's Play

I've had the great pleasure of working with Hasbro this year and can now proudly say that I'm well-versed in both the Transformers and My Little Pony lexicons (among others). This titan of the toy industry is also responsible for favorite brands including Playskool, G.I. Joe, Nerf, Littlest Pet Shop, Mr. Potato Head, Play-Doh and many, oh, many more.

Currently, I'm tasked with writing the product descriptions that appear on the Hasbro site and that they send to other retailers. At this point, nearly all of their U.S. products come through me and, let me tell you, it's a lot. But fun! Lots of fun. Also, when I went to see the G.I. Joe movie, I so knew aaaaaaall of the characters, scenes and vehicles. Beat that, 14 year-old boys.

Here is a minute sampling of some of the work I've done for Hasbro.

Travel and Marketing, What a Wonderful Pair

Ah yes, 'tis about time I posted more interactive samples of my work at Smarter Travel Media, especially considering I've been working with them for well over a year. Time flies when you're writing copy.

Here we have a few marketing emails (designs by Kate Orchard), two of the 20+ travel-tips-by-city on the BookingBuddy site's deals section and a couple of blog posts from blog.bookingbuddy.com. Also, thrillingly, I'll soon have new posts for Smarter Travel Media as projects that are in the works are soon to be revealed...