San Francisco, CA — this assignment was for NerdWallet, a personal finance company & fintech platform that provided free advice, tools & calculators to help make informed financial decisions.

The Assignment

They had assembled writers for their first content team to create SEO value to the company. To help kick it off, they needed a graphics person. There were already two branches for things: project design & product design.

Maggie Leung, VP of content, brought me on as a third branch, trending design. She ran the department casual & professional like a working writers bullpen, so it seemed; very fun, unusual, design experience. I sat next to the editors.

The creative brief

Writer Elizabeth Renter put together a creative brief about $100 bills, intended as a long-form infographic to follow a couple sentences of introductory. She gave me a doc with the lead & the three parts of her blog article.

At a kick off meeting, we went over the data points, the primary source, the overall takeaway. I asked questions for clarification.

This era of NerdWallet was fairly loose, not yet bogged down by fussy brand standards. I took liberty with levity & treated each piece with attention. Gotta lotta good mileage with my cut-out of Benjamin Franklin, ha.

I submitted a first draft, printed. The writer made text edits in pen ink, if it suited the visual graphic, or if the scope narrowed. We worked a couple rounds, then routed it to the assigned editor for approval.