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Denver School of the Arts Branding

Project Manager // Creative Director //

Web Designer // Web Developer

This project took a year of intensive planning and execution. As a creative team, we had to work within the boundaries of the Denver Public School district, which was a welcome challenge. Our goals were to make the school feel sophisticated, well structured, safe, timeless, creative - all while holding up a student's potential if they were to slap the logo on their own work. Over the course of the year, our logo went from totally outlandish (and beautiful) acid style typography then back to a familiar modern flavor. It was an experimental, yet fulfilling project, with amazing potential for future touch-ups.  The type is capable of being placed over any shape, it's easily replicable, it can be turned into dots and a dash without losing meaning, and it looks great over a piece of art - without stealing the show.

Please check out Caleb Ortega's website, the talented designer behind Denver School of the Arts new logo.

Website Designer and Developer

After Creative Directing a new branding for Denver School of the Arts, the school asked me to design and develop a new website.

This is the result.

Unfortunately, administration decided the website was too edgy compared to the old website citing concerns about user friendliness. They were mainly unhappy with the left side navigation (maybe I'm too attached ;-).

Here's the current (old) website for comparison.

I still feel the new website will be a game changer in supporting the DSA community and improving diversity in their school by increasing usability. Some of my favorite highlights of the design:

• large legible type
• condensed pages of information
• every page is less than three clicks away
• WYSIWYG backend
• responsive interface
• the most important information is visible in the top 500px of the home page.

The website never made it to beta, but it would be the next step if DSA admin wished to move forward.