Britax has spent decades leading the industry in car seat safety — but in a crowded baby-goods market, their brand story wasn’t reflecting the strength of their heritage. They partnered with Blacktop to refresh their visual identity and clarify how the brand shows up to parents.
Rooted in their legacy of research and protection, we developed the OVERPROTECT design platform — a bold, trust-driven system that positions Britax as the brand parents rely on. The system extended across ads, web assets, retail materials, and a comprehensive brand guide to ensure consistency moving forward.
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Project Scope:
• Branding & visual ideation
•. Campaign & content design
•. Brand guide design
When I relocated from St. Louis to Kansas City without an existing network, I wanted to introduce myself in a way that felt memorable and authentic. Rather than relying on cold outreach, I created a self-promotional mailer that presented myself as a brand and distilled key highlights typically found in a resume.
The piece unfolded from a tactile, thoughtfully designed package into a wall-ready poster, with every element directing recipients to my portfolio site for a deeper look at my work. The project blended storytelling, identity, and physical experience — turning a career transition into a creative expression of who I am as a designer.
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Project Scope:
• Concept development
•. Branding & visual ideation
•. Pre-production
American Advertising Awards Silver Winner
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I’ve had the opportunity to design multiple show posters for the Kansas City Repertory Theatre, contributing to productions across several seasons. These projects allowed me to lean into conceptual storytelling and expressive visual thinking. These posters were created as a cohesive seasonal series with a unified visual language and were recognized with KC AAA Silver Awards.
Project Scope:
• Concept development
•. Creative strategic thinking
• Design
• Presentation / sell-through
Woodhat Spirits is a brand new distillery located in New Haven, Missouri specializing in the production of blue corn whiskey and flavored vodkas. The label concepts shown here speak to the upscale and gentlemanly qualities of the Woodhat Blue Corn Whiskey product while implying an award winning tradition with the ribbon design. Ultimately, the tail portion of the ribbon design would be made of printed paper in final production, but the original concept was designed to have an actual fabric ribbon pasted under the label to add a 3D element to the piece that would help it stand out on the store shelf. Additionally, the ribbon pattern and color are meant to change based on the product to create a design system for the product labels that unifies the brand and builds cohesion across products.
In an alternate concept, I approached the design from a different angle, referring to corn whiskey’s moonshiner roots by utilizing a letterpress look that speaks directly to the handcrafted nature of the product. Ultimately, the client preferred the ribbon label.
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Project Scope:
• Label concept & design
Pasture Crafted Beef is a brand developed by Cargill that emphasizes the company's commitment to raising animals in a humane, sustainable manner. This documentary style brand video highlights those efforts through beautiful videography and rancher interviews that gives the brand an authentic and unique voice in the wholesale beef market.
Partnering with an outside video team, I was able to establish the video style, plan shots, develop interview questions and script notes.
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Project Scope:
• Shoot planning and Art Direction
• Shot list and storyboard development
• Interview question research and planning
In the foodservice industry, Mission Tortillas set the standard by which other tortilla brands are measured. Their commitment to quality and authenticity of product is what the brand stakes its reputation on and what customers have come to expect. With this in mind, Mission wanted to refresh their brand ads while strategically targeting three specific audience markets: general audience, college and university, and hotel and lodging.
Conceptually, the focus was to develop a look that could capture the authenticity of the Mission product and a voice that could exhibit the swagger of a superior quality tortilla. The result is a type-driven campaign centered around weathered painted stucco surfaces, awesome headlines, and beautifully plated food photography. Overall, the campaign dovetailed nicely with other brand initiatives and created one of the company’s most memorable and successful campaigns on record.
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Project Scope:
• Campaign concept
• Campaign design
I've been lucky enough in my career to work with brands that believe in the importance of really well done food and lifestyle photography. From developing the look, to working on set with photographers and stylists, I enjoy participating in every step of the shoot process.
