Hop a ride on the Seoul subway, and you'll find yourself surrounded by a horde of mobile phone users all wrapped up in a yellow-clad app known as Kakaotalk. KakaoTalk is South Korea's #1 mobile chat app; in western terms, it's Facebook, Twitter, and iMessage all rolled into one. It's so pervasive, even U.S. President Barack Obama mentioned it on an official visit in March 2012 (a sound clip which promptly became a KakaoTalk ringtone).

As KakaoTalk's fan base continues to grow internationally, I considered one challenge that might eventually confront users: when your contacts live all over the world, it's not always easy to tell when your friends are available to chat, due to time zones. So I envisioned a feature, called KakaoClock, that solves this problem by indicating which of your buddies are "up" for KaTalking when you are.

While KakaoClock adds exrta functionality to the KakaoTalk app, it does so within the existing limitations of the app's current design. Below is the imagined user experience.

While the internet has brought the world closer than ever before, it’s still hard to meet people from other places around the world. And everybody, at some point during their lives, has been curious about a foreign country—whether they were planning on traveling or living there, had an interest in politics, or wanted to discover some underground bands. Askaplace.com exists to satisfy people's natural curiosity about the world.

The home page is a world map, divided into countries. Simply click on a place that is online (i.e., green), and you’ll be chatting with another place. If you wait too long to choose a place, you might be connected automatically to a place that chooses you. Your chat will be text-based when it starts, but if you want to video chat as well, all you have to do is click the black area next to the chat box. Once the place you’re connected to does the same, your video chat will start.

Askaplace.com is not a social network - it's a location-based introduction engine designed to create new relationships, not maintain existing ones. Askaplace expands your social graph by starting digital friendships that eventually translate into real life, not the other way around as with established social networks.

I conceived of this project over the course of 2-3 years. The concept, design, UI work and copy are all mine. Current projected launch date is summer, 2012.

Features include: instant one-click text chat, optional two-click video chat; Google Translate integration, allowing for multi-language chat support; and flagging capabilities that temporarily bans abusive or inappropriate users.

While experience matters, what matters more is what one makes of experience: how a person comes to recognize in a crucible experience that something new or important is happening, to see beyond the discomfort, perhaps even the pain, of new and unexpected information and to incorporate that information as useful knowledge, not just about the world but, as likely, about oneself. —Robert J. Thomas, Crucibles of Leadership

Psychologists posit that drastic turning points in peoples' lives generally define most people. Why? Because simply because people allow single moments to define their lives. By stepping back and viewing seemingly large moments in the big picture of our existence, we can capture new perspectives.

This poster-sized, 24" x 36" image attempts just that. I reflected on a 29-year, 18-crucible life (with a color-coded emotion scale) by replacing the traditional X and Y axis with a more natural unit of measurement: the rings of a tree.

"The frequent question asked of the design community is of its value to business. The query itself makes little sense. Quite simply, the role of designers has always been to translate and communicate the value of a business idea to consumers. The best designers can do far more—they can help companies connect and establish a dialogue with consumers, thus enabling firms to innovate more." –BloombergBusinessweek

Now, more than ever, design and innovation is a top priority at the nation's best business schools. I was tapped to design a business school club logo that captured the excitement of the creative process. The inspiration? The tools of the design thinking trade: spontaneous lines, and Post-It notes.

A personal collection from Beijing and environs. Captured June and July, 2012.

OWS is, if nothing else, a colorful hodgepodge – and not just of people, ideas, and ideologies. There's a surprising mix of images, taglines, and other elements which, together, make up what is still an inchoate OWS "brand."

I was tapped by New York Magazine's Daily Intel Blog to share my (anonymous) Madison Avenue-esque perspective on the words and visuals that make up OWS. Grades were assigned to show which signs stood out from those that should have been left at home.

See the full 16-sign slideshow here: http://bit.ly/pK0tdP

Simply put, few liquids are more intriguing – and intimidating – than scotch whisky.

We created a series of original videos that takes scotch fans behind the scenes of the rich history, intricate rituals, and extraordinary legends that surround the world's most popular whisky: Johnnie Walker. Available exclusively to fans of the brand, our "Fact Insider" videos dissected some of the longest-standing mysteries of scotch, while staying accessible to the lay drinker and enthusiast alike. And each answer is delivered with playful verve from one of the world's few Masters of Whisky.

Cheers!

“Whether you are gifting, serving or entertaining with Johnnie Walker this holiday season, you are sure to make a lasting impression.”

This year we were faced with the difficult task of organizing multiple holiday initiatives into an integrated experience. The program stretched across several different channels including packaging design, HTML emails, direct mail and a full modular site build.

The Rubin Museum of Art is the only museum in the world completely dedicated to Himalayan art. Its six floors, served by the grandest of spiral staircases swirling upwards towards the heavens, each offer Tibetan Buddhist artwork of priceless condition and quality.

Unfortunately, the museum's current identity lacks the richness and depth embodied by the art it preserves.

This conceptual redesign aims to freshen the museum's look and appeal to a younger, more contemporary museum-going audience. Its keystone is an interpretation of the Tibetan prayer flags, used to mark sacred territories throughout the Himalayas - with an additional flag representing the museum's sixth floor. (SVA project)

A century come, a century gone
A century full of Scotland's dawns
A century here, a century next
To Black Label: the prize for those who savor the best

With the year 2009 came another step for Johnnie Walker in its continued march towards excellence: the 100-year anniversary of the legendary Black Label. To announce the event (and the release of a specially-designed commemorative bottle), we created a digital campaign that gave consumers the chance to show off their wordsmithing skills—and get recognized for their creativity. A round of emails and a landing page drew up the curtain on the centennial, featuring an offer for complimentary glasses. The "Post a Toast" Facebook application encouraged Johnnie Walker Facebook fans to share their personal tributes to the big milestone.
The the toasts that fans "liked" the most automatically rose to the top.

Well-known for a smattering of successful high-profile decisions, a New York City-based law firm was interested in a full website rebrand and redesign. This proposal included full integration of a multi-year blog, an archive of firm-generated research, and an exhaustive and detailed database of public services offered by the company.

While organized and run by good-hearted individuals, non-profits can sometimes lack focus. Whether their missions involve "education" or "poverty reduction" or "homelessness," too many organizations inadvertently spread themselves painfully thin.

Which is precisely what guided the founders of Project RightChoice, a brand-new non-profit originating on the campus of Dartmouth College, to hone their efforts in on a single cause per year. Its first year, now underway, is dedicated to raising funds for a specific group supporting former military service-members. These proposed logo explorations are meant to call to mind PRC's focus while alluding to its collegiate roots.

"Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere," testifies Anton Ego, the angular and brustling food critic of Ratatouille, regarding the "extraordinary meal from a singularly unexpected source" he experiences near the movie's end.

Ego had a precursor: Julia Child, whose life philosophy was driven by the utilitarian belief that anyone with an interest in cuisine could (and should) cook.Interestingly, the defining characteristics of her novel approach to cooking—empowerment, equality, and universality—are strikingly similar to the pillars of the historically ill-fated Russian Communist movement. Which in turn served as inspiration for this conceptual/experimental redesign of one of the most famous cookbooks of all time, "Mastering the Art of French Cooking." (SVA project)