Gritmedia
SparkNotes
SparkNotes, a subsidiary of Barnes & Noble, Inc., publishes literature study guides and test preparation materials for high school students. For three years I served as web creative director there, formalizing site strategy, directing website design and development, and managing a small staff.
In 2005, I led a large-scale redesign of the highly trafficked SparkNotes website. I reconceptualized the site structure to accommodate an enormous breadth and depth of content and better reflect user experience, creating new taxonomies and reworking page layouts to be more modular and scalable. Overseeing the tech and design teams in the creation of mockups and working HTML pages, I managed the entire project from concept to execution.
SparkLife
A component of the SparkNotes redesign was a full content and design overhaul of SparkLife, the SparkNotes community website. I oversaw the entire project, from my original concept through design and development, schedule management, HTML coding, and graphics creation. I was responsible for creating the style, tone, and topics for the weblog, and for editing and posting daily site updates, and promoting various features.
This site has since been redesigned.
SparkCollege
Later the same year, I oversaw the creation of SparkNotes-branded college search portal, controlling the organization and display of data on over 4000 schools. In addition to managing the interface design and production, I worked closely with the software development team to conceptualize end-user utilities like saved searches, and school ratings (users may mark a school target, safety, or reach), and to determine the basic algorithms that classify similar schools in the “View Similar ” tool.
No Fear Shakespeare
The No Fear Shakespeare line of books feature the original text of Shakespeare’s plays alongside a modern English translation. I created the series’ web presence, uniquely representing the book content in web-friendly format utilizing javascript rollovers, a deep search, and thorough navigational tools.