As Senior Content and Creative Director for Allied Telesis, an international technology solutions company, my task was a challenge from the moment I walked into the door. Different time zones, teams around the world, no process, an ancient website and more.
Challenge
Take a website that served as a database in Drupal and make the content exciting and the give the user an experience. No small feat, rest assured. But with a team of one UX/UI Director, three production artists, one writer, one FED and one back-end developer, five of which were located in New Zealand? In less than a year? Well, that’s just crazy! The icing on the cake: keep this site in Drupal.
Blood, sweat and tears went into V1 of this website. Late nights, cases of wine and hill after hill we climbed. As the only US full-timer, I was challenged with working with all contractors and folks that needed heavy hand-holding and direction. When previous roles I’ve held were straightforward content/conceptual roles, I found myself learning Drupal, purchasing imagery for an entire website, dropped into Pardot and Salesforce, writing surveys for TechValidate and Survey Monkey, among other fun things. The biggest perk? Creative control. You know that feeling when you’ve acquired a dream team of competent creatives and you share the magic of drive, creativity and vision for something better? This is the job I landed.
Old Home Page
New Home Page
- Video
- Smart Search
- Iconography-represented navigation
- Up-to-date design that was competitive with industry leaders
- Completely responsive design
- CSS animations
Old Product Landing Page
New Product Landing Page
- Better user experience
- Richer content that tells a story
- CSS animation
For a full evolution of Allied Telesis, check out the website. It’s a constant work in progress, so check back often!
As of late 2019, my team and I have continued to evolve the site by including an online chat bot, a sticky footer and updated navigation and refreshed look. And that’s just the home page. We have also introduced verticals into the mix and completely reworked our Solutions. A website can never stop improving!
Since working for Allied Telesis, I’ve had the opportunity to collaborate on several product and solutions videos for the brand. This has included hiring video producers, voice-over artists and purchasing stock photography and video clips. Oh, and did I mention writing scripts? Lots of writing, editing and back and forth until the team was happy. Here’s a few contributions:
