Microsoft

I had the fun opportunity to be a part of some amazing and noteworthy projects at Microsoft. The platforms and teams that I worked with under the Microsoft umbrella varied, but my role remained the same; create and implement pixel-perfect visual designs specifically catered to the needs of web, universal, desktop, and mobile including user interface (UI), illustration, and interactive solutions. I worked closely with PMs, other visual designers, writers, researchers and principle product managers during the creative process for each project that I’m involved with.

Modern Life Experience (MLX)

While embedded on the MLX team, I had the golden opportunity to help launch one new app and re-launch another. Money in Excel is a new platform which allows customers to securely connect their financial institutions and import and sync account and transaction information into an Excel spreadsheet. The Family Safety app is a re-imagined platform to help protect families in the digital world , including online security, screen time and other features like location and driving safety.

Money in Excel

While working for the Money in Excel team, I was asked to create visuals that were friendly and people-centric that could help build a humanistic user experience, allowing to alleviate the stress and anxiety associated with personal finances. I was tasked with building an asset library that stayed within the current Microsoft style guide and color palette. My goal was to create fun, yet informative illustrations, find a unique metaphorical voice and use a minimal color range that also included showcasing Excel’s brand colors.

Family Safety

For the Family Safety team, we wanted to elevate existing illustration assets and explore ways to infuse diversity, be more inclusive and to also create assets that were more relatable and naturalistic to the modern family experience. Similar to the parameters applied to Money in Excel, the illustration library I set to build needed to stay true to the current Microsoft style guide and color palette. I answered with assets that were slightly editorial, exploring new ways to play with space and telling stories through the illustrations.

Metaphors & Icons

One of my ongoing and ever-evolving projects at MSFT is to create illustrated metaphor and icons implemented in UX for applications like Office, OneDrive and Outlook. These metaphors and icons need to do the following: Adhere to the current Fluent design system, work seamlessly for desktop and mobile platforms, be easy to understand and help inform and delight 1.5 billion Microsoft customers.

Applying Metaphors & Icons Into UI

Once the metaphors and icons that I created were approved by product managers, the task of integrating them into UI, involving several different scenarios and viewing cards, followed. The challenge was finding the right balance between crucial information, functionality and brand presence, while also considering different dimensions that the metaphors would live in. Below were explores finding that balance with Outlook flights. There was consideration also given to the addition and elimination of secondary elements, along with removing the container box background to give the overall design a more clean and floating effect.

Before & After

During my time at Microsoft, I have championed the value of thoughtful design and illustration because, as Paul Rand once observed, they are the silent ambassadors for a brand. This philosophy is supported by examples below.

Microsoft Photos

I created this carousel of illustrations to help inform customers about the benefits of using Microsoft Photos for mobile. Security, collaboration, uploading and video capabilities are all represented here.

My Microsoft App

I worked closely with an internal Microsoft group interested in updating designs for an internal app which 150,000 Microsoft employees use to do things like check their stock options, see how many vacation days they have left or to simply see what’s on the menu for lunch at their local campus café. Because this was a business facing project, I had some freedom to push the illustrations a little more. I also wanted to be mindful of the current style guide.

Marketing Pieces

Some of my projects at Microsoft involve creating marketing pieces for new releases, upgrades and product features. These projects require leveraging new and existing assets and are put through extensive testing for customer feedback. Most of my marketing designs and UI solutions involve usability for Outlook desktop and mobile.

Motion

When the opportunity comes around, I hone my animation skills and apply motion to metaphors which serve to visually demonstrate how Microsoft products work and how they can benefit customers.

Outlook Groups

I had the chance to re-design welcoming emails letting customers know more about Microsoft Groups, which is an app in Outlook designed to take existing email threads and turn them into a group-style conversation. The app lets users create groups, mention their contacts, share documents and work on them together. I imagined folks using Groups for fun stuff like a cooking club or a kid’s soccer team.

Outlook Calendar Themes

The 400 million existing Outlook users are given functionality and aesthetic options to personally tailor their calendar. I was asked to work on the aesthetics part, designing seasonal scenes which were added to the existing theme library. One challenge was to fit the main subject matter of each scene in the tippy-top part of the banner that works along side existing UI. The other hurdle was to reimagine each scene in Dark Mode.