Microsoft Mobile Operator Toolkit

ROLE
Art Director

CREATIVE SCOPE
Inception through production of concept

DETAILS
A 3-ring binder, custom-fabricated with a powder-coated, brushed metal spine in Windows Mobile green and an acrylic translucent front and back cover. Two formats were created: a U.S. letter size and an international A4 size. It is comprised of over 300 pages of content separated into six sections. The sections are divided by die-cut tabs that doubled as pocket folders. A digital version was provided on CD-ROM and placed in the back of the binder.

While on Team Microsoft and under the guidance of the Associate Creative Director, I art directed and managed the creation of a global direct marketing piece that was given to mobile operators (e.g., Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile, Orange, etc.)—the Mobile Operator Marketing Toolkit, a comprehensive resource used to educate and assist mobile operators to promote Windows Mobile 5.0. In addition to the two-month timeline, the production of this piece proved to be a challenging task due to the amount of material that needed to be included—a custom-fabricated binder, dividers, more than 300 pages consisting of white papers and case studies, and CD-ROMs. Moreover, in addition to the printed version of the toolkit, the client requested an adapted electronic edition. To complete the project, it was necessary to:

• Create an execution plan based on a complete understanding of included content, which lead to improvements on the piece’s information architecture

• Bypass regular process and delegate certain tasks to our in-house studio to move pieces of the project forward in parallel to be completed and shipped early enough for the 3GSM World Congress

• Keep a daily progress checklist of included content while working with the account supervisor, in-house studio and production manager to assure the quality of the final piece

• Assist the team with various out-of-scope tasks (e.g., production, proofreading, etc.)

• Possess an advanced level of the technical knowledge to leverage its features to shorten creation time

This project tested my ability to manage the creation of a directly-marketed promotional piece while working with a 5-person team which consisted of the Account Director, Production Manager, Studio Manager, Copywriter and Production Artist.

YEAR
2005