Senior Graphic Designer & Digital Media Specialist

Avison Young Commercial Real Estate
2010 – 2016 | Vancouver, BC

Learning to work in a fast-paced environment was a major accomplishment and necessity at Avison Young. I worked with highly confidential information regularly, and my routine involved preparing materials like brochures, website updates, marketing emails, project timelines, and more within tight deadlines for sales pitches for transactions valued up to $2.5 million dollars. Efficiency was key, so right away, I ended up writing guidelines for naming and standardizing digital assets. My recommendations were implemented immediately.

Marketing Email

The Avison Young Vancouver office knew that Outlook wasn't keeping up with their marketing needs, even before CASL came into effect in 2014. MailChimp had been chosen as a marketing platform in 2010, and I created custom-branded templates for the marketing team's use. To prepare for the federal implementation of CASL, I ensured our templates were legally compliant, oversaw the marketing team's training, and tracked the office's email statistics. Several other Avison Young offices across the US and Canada contacted me for template assistance over the years. Mobile templates were drafted in 2016.

Print Design

I designed Avison Young-branded brochures, meeting documents, request for information (RFI) and proposal (RFP) booklets, and more for my teams of brokers (approximately 25). RFIs and RFPs typically involved producing documents that were over 100 pages long. I also created the templates and corresponding InDesign styles for the Vancouver office design team in compliance with the company's branding.

I created a variety of marketing brochures and supplemental material for approximately 25 different brokers, brochures for hundreds of properties, and a variety of different projects. Occasionally, I would need to combine a client's external branding into Avison Young marketing pieces.

InDesign Styles

I created templates and corresponding styles for InDesign documents in compliance with the company's branding. These template designs were designed by another senior designer, but they needed to be implemented in a user-friendly way. The templates were shared with other offices throughout the company (Canada, USA, and Europe).

Image showing formatting of English and Chinese text

I also realized that the Vancouver office was generating a considerable amount of Chinese content, so I created additional InDesign templates with GREP styles to ensure Chinese characters, Latin characters (common for street, building, or community names), and numbers maintained Avison Young's branding and were comfortable to read together.

Requests for Proposals and Information

Requests for Proposals (RFP) and Requests for Information (RFI) typically involved producing documents that were over 100 pages long. I determined and ordered appropriate binder sizes, prepared cover pages, compiled and created documents, and managed the printing and assembly of supplemental documents for presentations to investors.

Request for Information binders
Devenne

I have a fascination with detail and the representation of thought, e.g. writing and typography, code, or art. I share my desk at home with Mozilla, Freddy holding a typography pencil, a One Laptop Per Child laptop, and a G3 iMac.