INFORMATION DESIGNER
The PARAGRAPH Project
While working at The PARAGRAPH Project for over 3 years, I had the opportunity to grow as an artist and expand the skills of my craft while exploring new outlets for my creative curiosity. PARAGRAPH for short, is a market research and brand strategy firm based out of Durham NC. As an Information Designer I took advantage of my flexible nature, allowing me to traverse many mediums and methodologies. Specifically, I worked to transform information heavy reports into visual artifacts — Managed the creation, delivery, and storage of monthly newsletters highlighting thought leadership from the Partners of the company — Counseled clients on web design & brand development — Organized community alchemy to improve communication & collaboration among PGP’s employees — And built upon my knowledge of research and strategy methods. My thirst for knowledge combined with PARAGRAPH’s unique environment gives me the opportunity to nurture innovative ideas and to expand my creativity early on in my career.
Visual Communication:
Maintained the PARAGRAPH brand including promotional products, social media, client outreach materials, and more.
Crafted creative assets to help elevate the data and information provided by the Research & Strategy team.
Credits:
Created Under: The PARAGRAPH Project
Art Direction: Dave Alsobrooks
Research & Strategy: Gwen Nagle, Dan Carlton, & Chelsey Robertson
Artifacts
“Creativity in Strategy” — PARAGRAPH’s mantra. Through this lens we created crafted research experiences for each client, unearthing genuine insights that led to inspiring solutions. Artifacts were created out of a need to distill data heavy research documents into unique visual storylines. They aim to bring research and insights to life in an inspiring way through the execution of data driven posters, booklets, infographics, and more. Artifacts provide a point of access, allowing employee’s to immerse themselves in the data and return with a better understanding of their customers and company.
Slow Culture
Slow Culture is a self initiated research project, driven by the belief that we can better understand and predict human behavior by studying the internal motivations that run deep in all of us. “The booklet series was created as an antidote to the trend-watching treadmill that prioritizes flash-in-the-pan fads over lasting insights. Through years of work, Slow Culture ™ was developed as a framework for making sense of why people do what they do today, and what they might do in the future. In the series, we examine the eight eternal human motivations that form the basis of this framework” (Paragraph).
Multiple years in the making, our team collaborated to create authentic content and to design each booklet as a unique glimpse into the 8 motivations. The booklets were released through social networks and a monthly newsletter. After developing a steady flow of traffic, we introduced the “What Motivates You?” quiz where you could identify your primary motivation to further connect with the content of Slow Culture.
Digital Presence
After the build up of our Kickstarter campaign for “The Discovery Toolkit,” PARAGRAPH wanted to deliver inspiring content to the community but wasn’t sure where to start. We built an audience and wire mapped content, but needed help to accurately display our authentic voice. Over the next few months, we attended a couple workshops, developed unique content, and identified the appropriate channels to execute our social media strategy.
We created Curiosity Condensed, a once-a-month-ish newsletter that presented a fresh perspective into the world of strategy through selected monthly topics. This included a special edition where we dove into the world of trend-watching, creating our take, the “8 Non- Trends Report,” a collection of dots that are starting to connect and tell us more about the dynamics driving our present and our potential future. All of which was showcased on PARAGRAPH’s social media accounts, highlighting our original voice and genuine content.
The Paragraph Brand
Some work, some play - The culture at PARAGRAPH has always been a dynamic one. When I wasn’t working on client work, I was encouraged to play around with a multitude of mediums — from photographing our team to creating branded “swag” to send around to clients after we wrapped up a project. I was able to get my hands dirty being a curious creative while conveying PARAGRAPH’s authentic voice.
