ART DIRECTOR
During my tenure at Science 37, I saw the company grow from just a handful of people in a small office space to over 250 employees all across the country. I was able to grow from a lone designer to Art Director and hire a team of designers, photographers, marketers, engineers, and recruiters. As the lead designer, I designed a contemporary brand identity system synthesizing personality, professionalism, and excitement for clinical research and the technology field. I provided creative oversight for all corporate marketing materials, including presentations, advertisements, clinical trial recruitment, training, and education.
IDENTITY DESIGN & MARKETING
At Science 37, we believe the best way to bring about change is by getting involved in scientific research. That’s why we made it available to you and everyone who wants to connect with scientists to drive positive change around the world. We are doctors, scientists, tinkerers, and doers who love science and live by our motto of being kind, useful, and awesome. We are storytellers because narratives inspire and unite humanity. Our model is designed to make it easier for anyone to share clinical research opportunities with those in their lives. We do it all through our unique technology, a seamless communication system, and an ecosystem of medical support.
The mission of Science 37 is to bring scientific research to everyone, so the visual design of the company should mirror that mission and be easily accessible to everyone. Because the company interacts with corporate sponsors and the scientific community, the look and feel needs to be professional, knowledgeable, and trustworthy. Since it also recruits patients for trials, the look and feel of the company also needs to be friendly, fun, and innovative. Due to these seemingly opposite needs, I created a visual brand identity and guidebook using a unifying design language to help external vendors be consistent with our look and feel. This creative framework and marketing materials helped secure multiple rounds of funding for Series C ($29M) and Series D ($40M).
PHOTOGRAPHY STYLE ART DIRECTION
When creating a framework for the photography that we would use at Science 37, I wanted to choose images that were approachable and human, and provide a photographic style that captures real moments. This is a far step away from the standard stock photography and I was fortunate enough to have an in-house photography team on my team to direct.
I lead our photographers to capture moments that would resonate with prospective patients and have a warm and inviting spirit. I consciously stayed away from hiring models in favor of showing genuine and authentic slices of life. Any of the people featured would have the potential to be someone you know or could know. As patients are the center of clinical trials, everything in our photography was designed to help tell a human story.
In order to add some more pop to our photos, I designed a system of photography styles that we could use to help draw people into the story. For the corporate facing and B2B designs, I create a system of monotone images with a series of icons that would help create visual punctuation on our photos. To draw our patients into the images, our message was embedded into the images to encourage our patients to engage more with the content.
ILLUSTRATION & VISUAL DESIGN
Science, health, and technology should always feel accessible. In order to achieve this, I used illustrations to ease the burden of complex topics. In a semi-flat design style for the illustrative style at Science 37 so we could be instantly recognizable and stand out from the other clinical trial companies. I developed a colorful and inviting semi-flat design aesthetic that stretched across all branded materials from presentations, websites, to the web and mobile apps. These illustrations were heavily used in our patient-facing and social media materials and helped catch prospective patient’s eyes by being friendly and bold, but kept a trustworthy and approachable feeling. One of the largest hurdles of running a clinical trial is being able to recruit patients in a timely manner, during my time at Science 37 and the application of this style, we saw 50% faster patient recruitment than other sides within the same trial. All illustrations are my original artwork and were created in Adobe Illustrator.
BE KIND, USEFUL & AWESOME
The unofficial motto of Science 37 is “be Kind, Useful & Awesome.” Wanting to expand our reach and propel our mission, we launched a joint campaign with the city of Los Angeles to spread the word. The campaign launched with an original song and music video and was later rolled out throughout the city with out-of-home advertisements, swag, and site-specific pop-ups installations. This campaign also issues a challenge to other biotech companies to adopt the “be Kind, Useful & Awesome” philosophy as they speak to patients in clinical trials. Being part of a clinical trial not only useful in creating new medicine and vaccines, but your contribution may also help save the lives of others and that is awesome. This was a passion project and I developed the marketing strategy and assets in partnership with the city of Los Angeles.
