Posts in Art Direction
  • Clarified refresh and codification of core organizational brand standards

    • Brand Strategy

    • Identity Design

    • Narrative + Publication Design

    • Ethical Storytelling

    • Digital Asset Management

    • Stakeholder Alignment

    • Strategy, art direction, and management by Xuanlana

    • Design by Samantha Lee and Rob Chambliss

Visual Brand Strategy

EARTHJUSTICE

As a environmental law firm engaging high-profile cases like DAPL, Earthjustice was in need of an updated and more well-defined visual brand and brand standards during rapid growth and visibility as a way to more cogently engage audiences and partners.

To meet that need, Xuanlana worked closely within the design and communications teams in defining the core visual brand and brand guidelines—building off of what was in place, while articulating both a firmer and deeper sense of the organizational identity.

  • Art direction and management of campaign ad creative across program areas as well as extensive print and digital channels.

    • Art Direction

    • PM + Workflow Management

    • Print + OOH Ad Creative

    • Digital Ad Creative

    • Ad creative art direction and production oversight by Xuanlana

    • Never Rest core capital campaign led by Earthjustice internal teams in collaboration with agency Futerra

National Ad Campaign Creative

EARTHJUSTICE

Xuanlana worked with the Earthjustice communications and development team in helping to drive one of its most significant public marketing campaigns as a lead-up to the 50 year anniversary of the organization’s founding. With tight creative alignment and reciprocal coordination with the internal marketing team in tandem with agency Futerra, Xuanlana would help support and inform the campaign through her own update of the organization’s core brand as well as oversee the comprehensive production of extensive ad creative across media. In close collaboration with in-house teams, she would help produce integrated ad creative across national print, OOH, and online channels.

  • Art direction of organizational brand update and expression across media

    • Brand Strategy

    • Art Direction

    • Commissioned Art / Photography

    • UI Design + Development

    • Advertising

      • Print

      • Digital

      • OOH

    • Art direction and creative management by Xuanlana

    • Design by L. Milton and photography by Jock McDonald

Museum Brand Refresh + UI Design

CHILDREN’S CREATIVITY MUSEUM (ZEUM)

Over the course of this organization’s brand evolution and challenges around brand recognition, Xuanlana was helped art direct a brand refresh campaign to help clarify the museum’s core offerings to new families, both local and touring to downtown San Francisco. Working closely with a designer and photographer, she helped expand creative that reflected an updated brand expression that was more authentically fun, vibrant, and smart—and true to what the interactive children’s museum was about.

  • Creative direction and management of high-volume Quarterly Donor Magazine

    • Art Direction

    • Editorial Design / Storyboarding

    • Commissioned Art / Photography

    • Data Visualization

    • Stakeholder Alignment

    • Ethical Storytelling

    • Sustainable Production

    • Art Direction for all shown work by Xuanlana

    • Additional art direction and design production by internal EJ production teams and support staff, notably design by Heather Sourwine and Rob Chambliss

    • Commissioned photography and art credited within publications

Quarterly Magazine

EARTHJUSTICE

For over eight years, Xuanlana art directed and led the production of the Earthjustice quarterly magazine with a circulation of 100k and growing. She worked with the Earthjustice Editorial, Photo, Design teams—as well as proofreaders, printers, illustrators, and photographers to produce a high-quality, high volume magazine over a three month production cycle

From initial story pitches to art assignments all the way through rigorous internal review and approvals, including fact-checking, proofreading, proofing, and press check, Xuanlana would lead and align an ever evolving team of creative producers to create a 36 page full-color magazine that helped reinforce and expand the organization’s voice as the expert in environmental policy.

In contextualizing the most high-profile, contentious, and often complex issues in our time around climate and environmental justice, Xuanlana had to engage particular considerations around ethical storytelling and often distillation of dense content.

  • Creative management of rebrand concepting and UI redesign during organizational brand evolution.

    • Brand Strategy

    • UI Design + Development

    • Illustration

Educational Website UI Design

MAKER EDUCATION

As the community and educational arm of the Make Magazine and Maker Faire brands—and the de facto leading voices of the maker movement, Maker Education needed help in its early years to engage and outreach to an extensive community of educators and young makers. It required a hub and an online space to centralize shared resources and community thought leadership, while also clarifying its brand relative to the larger Maker ecosystem. During this time, Xuanlan was hired on to collaborate closely with the team to develop their online presence to make information and resources more accessible for a diverse and growing network of localized Maker community groups and individuals, young and old.

  • Art direction and management of 60th Anniversary festival campaign creative as well as ongoing creative management of gala event creative

    • Campaign Branding

    • Print + OOH Ad Creative

    • Event Promotions

    • Art Direction and Design by Xuanlana

    • Design production support by Heather Sourwine

Art Festival Campaign Creative

SAUSALITO ART FESTIVAL FOUNDATION

An historic institution for over 60 years in the picturesque waterfront town, the Sausalito Art Festival is a nationally renowned arts event bringing in 30,000 people annually and 260 award-winning artists from all over the country. To mark its 60 year anniversary milestone, the festival hired Xuanlana to help with campaign branding and creative as well as concepting exclusive donors-only galas that precursors the public open. Working with the foundation and event planners, she would produce custom creative reflective of the rich history and vibrance of the arts festival itself.

  • Custom art and design for annual organizational golf fundraiser.

    • Art Direction

    • Illustration

    • Stakeholder Alignment

Golf Event Fundraiser Creative

RONALD MCDONALD HOUSE

As a high profile charity with localized chapters providing a homebase for families navigating sensitive health challenges, Ronald McDonald House relied on key fundraisers to engage donors and highlight the critical work they do. Xuanlana was hired to help develop event branding and promotional creative that captured what was intrinsically human and intimate to the organizational brand and its signature support model. In doing so, Xuanlan would develop multiple successful event campaigns that leveraged custom creative for the organization and would also be further licensed for other chapter event

  • Art direct and design an accessible website that helps reinforce initiative goals and act as a resource for applicants.

    • Art Direction

    • UI Design + Development

Educational Initiative Website UI Design

DREAM.ORG

Born from the vision of Van Jones and Prince, Yes We Code was a national initiative founded in 2014 to provide pathways for underrepresented young people to succeed in the tech sector. With a goal to train and prep 100,000 young people for careers in the technology sector, Xuanlana was tasked to help make the website be more accessible and relevant to its intended audience of young people—while also providing some cogency around its place in a broader Dream.org ecosystem of initiatives