Indoor/outdoor display

The WRI Ross Center Prize for Cities is a global award given to cities for projects that bring big ideas to critical urban challenges and deliver life-changing impact. Since 2018, the Prize has received more than 1,200 submissions across regions, sectors and issue areas, and awarded $250,000 to each winning city across five cycles.

For the latest Prize event, I was asked to concept and produce a series of portable display panels to be installed at high-profile events in New York City and Yale University. The panels needed to be modular, high-quality, lightweight, and double-sided (no roll-up convention banners here), all while staying within a fixed budget. Working with a local vendor, we found a solution using collapsible aluminum channel with a fabric overlay. I designed a total of 18 panels to illustrate five themes of the Prize finalists.

In 2024 I was asked by my CEO to research and produce a retrospective campaign focusing on WRI's legacy initiatives. With the Institute being over 40 years old, we found that new and existing employees, donors, and board members had no idea about some of our greatest achievements, and this was an opportunity to both educate and inform our key audiences as well as gather historical information about our work and alumni before it was lost for good.

Beginning with three initiatives, I produced a video, brochure, website and display panel for each, followed by two more in 2026. Each panel is freestanding, with an inset television running cloud-based display software with their particular video on repeat, so that the panels can be moved and set up anywhere there's power and a wifi signal. After discussing options with the vendor, I provided my own sketches for construction and had them build each one to match. Each panel is pre-cut to accept a clear brochure sleeve.

For WRI's recurring fundraising dinner, Courage to Lead, I developed the visual brand and all of the materials, from save-the-date mailers to motion graphics for each presentation, plus wayfinding and informational displays. In 2014 we honored Board members Jim Harmon and Pam Flaherty, with Hillary Clinton as a featured speaker. In 2017 we honored Darren Walker and Feike Sijbesma with former Mexican President Felipe Calderón as guest speaker. The 2019 dinner honored Dan Doctoroff and Frannie Léautier. This event ran concurrently with the first WRI Ross Prize for Cities award, which added an extra level of branding complexity. The dinners drew roughly 350 guests each and raised between $700,000 and $1 million each.

Each event was held in New York City, which required close coordination with each venue, their chosen vendors, and our internal development team. On the day of each event, I was on hand to set up and coordinate the visuals, and during each event I shot stills and video. Afterwards I coordinated with outside editors to cut sizzle reels for social media and other post-promotion.

As part of a four-year engagement, idfive was asked to develop recruitment campaigns for the University of Baltimore and several of its graduate programs. Moving away from the existing text-heavy, visually cluttered advertisements, we developed a campaign around simple 2-5 word phrases, setting them in the UB font and directing viewers to a specialized webpage. The second round featured a pop-art comic style, featuring a prominent and unique QR code depending on the format and location. The third round paired dynamic commissioned photography of UB students with bold type to put faces to the headlines.

Each campaign and URL featured unique UTMs to track reach and uptake, helping refine ad placement further as the engagement continued.