Promote Local / Eight years of creative direction
Making Essential Services Easier to Use.
I co-founded Promote Local in 2015 and spent eight years as its Creative Director. I handled creative direction, graphic design, branding, web design, and website accessibility improvements for small and medium-sized businesses in Dane County and organizations serving people with disabilities across Wisconsin.
Brand systems & graphic design
Web design & accessibility improvements
Publications, resources & campaigns
A clearer path to a practical next step.
A substantial part of that work involved making essential information easier to understand and act on. Families needed a clear way to request early intervention services. Students needed help understanding their options after high school. Adults needed practical resources for living independently, staying connected, and participating in their communities.
I connected websites, visual identities, printed resources, video, and campaigns around those needs. These selected projects show how that work took shape, from a public campaign to the materials that helped people take part in a conference.
Milwaukee County Disability Resource Center
Helping people find resources and stay connected.
For Milwaukee County’s Disability Resource Center, I worked on service pages, resource materials, and campaigns connecting adults with disabilities and chronic illness to support.
For #DisabilityMKE, I developed a coordinated campaign for billboards, bus advertising, and bus shelters, including English and Spanish shelter designs. The campaign paired people-centered imagery with a consistent invitation to visit the DRC website or call for support. Across the formats, the message connected people to information about services, resources, and their options.
The billboard, bus, and shelter settings shown here are illustrative mockups using my original campaign artwork.
Billboard and bus campaign mockups.
One campaign, adapted to the way people encounter it.
Website design concept and practical resources.
The website materials brought together explanations of services, counseling videos, and resource database links.
During the pandemic, I also worked on resources addressing practical barriers to staying connected. A Social Isolation Toolkit covered internet and phone access, technology, food, and transportation, alongside guidance for helping people join virtual meetings. These resources gave staff and residents concrete steps for using digital services and maintaining contact.
Wisconsin Self-Determination Conference
A conference people looked forward to all year.
The Wisconsin Self-Determination Conference brings people with disabilities, families, and supporters together to learn, share experiences, and build more choice and control in everyday life. The Wisconsin Board for People with Developmental Disabilities leads the event with People First Wisconsin and InControl Wisconsin.
This was a major, year-round client for us at Promote Local. I led the creative direction and worked with our team on program booklets, conference graphics, signage, and event materials. The conference team developed the program and content; I helped carry it into a clear, consistent visual experience before and during each event.
Explore the 2023 conference ↗A program people could use.
The booklet brought the event’s personality together with the details attendees needed: schedules, workshops, room locations, exhibitor information, and ways to participate. The final 2023 program carried the Be Curious: Explore the Possibilities theme through its cover and interior pages.
An identity beyond the booklet.
I helped extend the conference’s identity into the materials people encountered throughout the event. The 2022 photo backdrop and 2023 tote artwork show how the visual system carried across different years, formats, and uses.
The people made the work matter.
We worked throughout the year preparing for each conference. Watching attendees enjoy themselves, connect with others, and make memories was one of the most rewarding parts of the work. People looked forward to this event every year, and helping prepare for those moments meant a great deal to me.
Milwaukee County Birth to 3
Connecting families with early intervention.
For Milwaukee County Birth to 3, I worked across the website, family-facing materials, and outreach campaigns to explain early intervention and give families a clearer route to support. The work included referral information, developmental resources, English and Spanish materials, and promotion for community events.
The 2023 Early Start, Bright Future initiative brought that work together through a campaign identity, website, social content, and event materials.
Birth to 3 referrals submitted through the website in 2022, as reported by Milwaukee County.
Individuals attended the Early Start, Bright Future celebration on May 19, 2023, documented in the campaign’s final report.
These figures describe the program’s referral channel and event attendance, rather than measured increases caused by design. Sources: Milwaukee County 2022 annual report, pp. 20–21 and the 2023 Early Start, Bright Future final report.
Disability Rights Wisconsin
Making the transition to adulthood easier to navigate.
For Disability Rights Wisconsin’s Plan the Possibility initiative, funded by the Otto Bremer Trust, I designed a visual system for explaining life after high school to students with disabilities. The guide used a video-game progression theme, with levels, power-ups, and exercises that invited students to think about their own goals.
The work extended across a 16-page guide, a 12-page companion activity collection, a brand specification sheet, and supporting graphics. Complex topics such as transition planning, employment support, and independent living became a sequence students could follow and discuss with the people supporting them.
Promote Local
Creative direction carried through to execution.
Every design choice needed to serve a practical next step: requesting support, understanding a service, preparing for adulthood, or finding a place to connect. That is the kind of creative direction I practiced at Promote Local, from the initial concept to the finished materials.