With the talents of a multidisciplinary team, I led this complete website redesign, from top to bottom. To kick off the project, we completed stakeholder interviews, gathered user research, and reviewed website analytics. Then, we combed the site page-by-page to audit all its content, evaluating it for usefulness, accuracy, tone, and effectiveness. While doing this, we identified opportunities to edit, add, and eliminate, and rethought all content with a mobile-first mindset.
When we traveled to the Evergreen State College campus, to conduct interviews and research for the first time, we were struck by its natural beauty and welcoming community. It was critical that in our process of restructuring and redesigning its website, we show off as much of this vibrancy as we could.
Simple images and captions just didn’t do the campus justice. We had to invest in as much video storytelling as possible. We worked with the Evergreen team to highlight the various offerings and conversations that happen across campus.
Today, the videos live on Evergreen’s website to provide an opportunity for students to hear from current students and faculty. To see where they might be living and learning, and get a glimpse into life at Evergreen.
Award-Winning:
Gold Award, American Advertising Federation
Last Chance is a self-produced benefit show that harnesses the power of neon to illuminate the endangered animals projected to be extinct this year due to the consumerism of them for fashion, beauty, and decor.
A portion of proceeds went to the Brooklyn Fashion + Design Accelerator (BF+DA), a hub for ethical and sustainable fashion resources.
Neon Artists:
James Akers
Kacie Lees
Stephanie Lifshutz
Keenan MacWilliam
Photographer:
Travis Emery Hackett
Video by:
Kyle McMorrow
Creative Director
Lindsey Eckwall
Producers:
Rachel Newell & Jade White
This short film is used to introduce DDB U.S.’s Gender Balance initiative, Better By Half. It serves to bring men and women together, at every level, to discuss and find opportunities to improve this important issue in our industry.
Credits:
Executive Creative Director: Janet Guillet
Art Director: Rachel Lee Newell
Producer: Joanne Diglio
University of the Ozarks is a small private college with a 184-year history in the heart of rural Arkansas. Deep roots aside, the university was struggling to differentiate itself and drive more right-fit students to enroll.
Ozarks students are experience-oriented. They’re adventurers. They’re ready to hit the ground running. To appeal to them, we saw an opportunity to create an out-of-the-box acceptance package that convinces them to enroll.
We upgraded the university’s acceptance package from a basic form letter to an immersive unboxing experience packed with thoughtful touches and sustainable goodies. Each box, sealed with a “You’re In!” sticker, contains celebratory crinkle paper, an admissions letter rolled with twine, pins, stickers, a belt bag, and a Welcome Book.
Award-Winning:
Gold Award, American Advertising Federation
Leveraging the State Farm commercial, "State Of Chaos", we developed a digital execution that allowed users to create chaos in their town. We harnessed Google Maps and Street View imagery to create a personalized and dynamic version of the TV commercial.
Awarded Cannes Direct Lion, 2012
The touch. The feel. The fabric of our lives. Cotton spent decades making ads with celebrities singing the iconic jingle and spinning around in cotton dresses—not exactly the fabric of most people's lives.
Common Threads was a campaign that highlighted how real people's unique lifestyles are connected by cotton.
Credits:
Creative Team: Tyler Kirsch & Rachel Newell
Director: Ry Russo-Young
This “Build A Balanced Life” campaign for the Central Florida Development Council highlighted the quality of life and professional opportunities in Polk County.
A docu-series of short videos featuring real local success stories, followed by all the facts and figures on the region’s quality of life, career connections, and growth trajectory.
The social campaign spanned 24 total posts to accompany and promote “Build a Balanced Life” landing page.
Glidden wanted to help people with the real struggles of painting, but their how-to videos were generic and boring. We created Brush Buzz With Jill & Amy, an unconventional how-to series featuring a pair of eccentric women with an over-the-top passion for paint.
Credits:
Creative Team: Tyler Kirsch & Rachel Newell
Director: David Gaddie
One evening, some friends and I found ourselves swapping stories about the difficulties we were all facing trying to learn a new language as an adult. We jokingly said, “If only there was an app for that!” So we made one. With Pretzel, improve a foreign language and help others do the same.
Credits:
Co-Creator & UX Designer: Rachel Lee Newell
Co-Creators: Mary Bakarich & Markus Winkler
Film Director: Adam Gundersheimer
Film Editor: Vanessa Haddad
To mark the arrival of the Jaguar F-PACE, Jaguar’s first performance SUV with the DNA of a sports car, Slate Group Studios created Driving Forces, a three-part exploration of the many ways British cool, class and excellence continues to boldly push the boundaries of creativity in the U.S. Via custom interactives, guides, and Slate’s signature analysis, Driving Forces examines how the U.K. DNA of some of the most popular contemporary trends in food, music and art is daring Americans to eat, dance, and think differently.
The “Double Check the Commercial Challenge” brought new life to the State Farm Double Check campaign by creating an fan-centric interactive game.
SUN n’ FUN is a staple event in Central Florida with thousands of visitors every year. For the 50th annual event in 2024, the Aerospace Center for Excellence (ACE) decided to take their advertising up a notch. ACE needed help reaching a broad audience—adults young and old, parents, pilots and families—across a variety digital and traditional channels.
While in Tokyo, I was fascinated with the vertical grid all transportation seemed to strictly follow. This collage series, explores how the human form exists within those landscapes.
After the launch of New York Lottery's Powerball "Yeah, that kind of rich." campaign, which included TV spots, photographic posters, and a typographic headline campaign, there was one thing missing: a digital element.
We wanted to stick to the formula of winners enjoying their usual passions, but in a much bigger way. So we created a series of 30 fictional magazines based on everyday hobbies and filled them with extraordinary cover stories and features. Users could connect to Facebook and populate the covers with their own name and photos, then share them via social media channels.
A short film about that pesky question, "What if?"
Here are a few of my favorite covers from my time at The L Magaizne.
A series of hand-crafted illustrations for a children's book.
The I Care button was a new way to show support when 'Like' was the only choice. The button has received international attention — HuffingtonPost, Creativity, FastCompany, Webby Awards — and is currently being used by MTV Voices. Get the button at icare-movement.com.
Credits:
CCO: Matt Eastwood
ECD: Menno Kluin
Copywriter: Katie Riddle
Designer: Rachel Newell
Florida State Parks identity emphasis adventure found outside a theme park.
While I was in Tokyo, I would click on the TV and channel surf—trying to find something to watch—but I had no idea what was going on. When my American roommate asked what I was watching, I answered to the best of my ability in the form of a haiku. A fun written series was born. Here are a few excerpts.
Neighborhood Assist is a youth-led, crowd-sourced initiative that partners with local non-profit organizations to create solutions to community issues identified by local residents.
The goal of Neighborhood Assist is to encourage the public to identify core issues and State Farm to provide the resources for a local non-profit to creatively make a difference.
2013's program was an overwhelming success with over 3.4 Million votes cast, or an average of 181,000 votes a day.
Each year Publix Holiday Lights packaging competes with other brands to sell holiday decorations ranging from simple single-colored string lights to illuminated window displays. To capture the light-hearted glee of the season illustration were used instead of photographs to depict the various products.
Illustration, Packaging Design
A sample of black / white / grey pieces.
