CBC
Design Lead (Product Design, Editorial Design, Senior Producer)
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) is Canada’s public broadcaster.
In 2013, shortly after wrapping up four years at Phaidon Press and relocating to Vancouver, BC, I was recruited by Jonas Woost at CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) to design a new mobile-first website for CBC Music.
After designing an initial proof of concept, launching a minimum viable product, and advocating for a more cohesive design experience across all of CBC Music’s touchpoints, I was promoted to lead the design team.
In twelve years at CBC I’ve been responsible for leading the design of several ground-up, audience-facing apps and websites, including CBC Listen, CBC Music (two or three times,) and ICI Musique. Often embedded within multiple product development teams, and sometimes operating independently, my responsibilities have spanned all aspects of the design and product development lifecycle, from brand and editorial, to interface, interaction, research, and testing.
In 2017, my role at CBC evolved to lead the design of a new audience-facing service, CBC Listen.
CBC Listen was designed for audiences to discover and listen to everything that CBC has to offer: Live and On Demand Radio; CBC Podcasts; and CBC Music Playlists.
To kickstart the design and development process — and to provide stakeholders with a high-level roadmap for CBC Listen — I framed product design and development around three phases, each with incremental levels of audience engagement, grounded in first principles thinking: Listen Now; Listen More; and Listen Everywhere.
Initially in the ‘Listen Now’ phase, I asked three questions:
1. What do we have for audiences to listen to?
2. How should we organize what we have for audiences?
3. Within each listening experience, how should we prioritize what we have to offer?
CBC Listen launched in 2019. The overarching design principles that I applied to the product included: Mobile first design; Responsive design; Platform agnostic design; and Iterative design.
CBC Listen
CBC Listen: “Hello”
CBC Listen: On Demand
CBC Listen: CBC Podcasts
CBC Listen: CBC Music Playlists
CBC Listen: Audio Player
CBC Listen: On Demand Collections
CBC Listen: Misc. Artwork
Since 2019 I’ve been working with journalists, photographers, illustrators, and web developers at CBC to produce new forms of visual journalism, in subjects ranging from entertainment and current affairs, to local and national news.
In late 2020, I teamed up with CBC Saskatoon journalist Omayra Issa, and CBC Radio host Ify Chiwetelu to lead the design of Black on the Prairies: a multi-platform project exploring the past, present and future of Black Prairie life, which launched in April, 2021.
My role on Black on the Prairies spanned all aspects of the look and feel of the project, from brand identity and responsive web page design, to photo direction, editing, and contributing to supplementary marketing materials.
Black on the Prairies
“There is so much care and beauty in this project. A stunning, specific work of journalism and community.”
April 2021
“I love everything about this historic Black on the Prairies project and the creators Omayra Issa
and Ify Chiwetelu.”
April 2021
“The amount of research and work that has gone into the Black on the Prairies project is nothing short of remarkable.”
April 2021
Jumping further back in time: In 2016, while leading a small design team towards a unified design system for CBC Music and ICI Musique, I created a new visual identity for CBC Music’s growing selection of playlists. Since then, and in between other projects, I’ve continued to develop the format, which features four individual album covers, contained within a circle — reminiscent of vinyl records, compact discs, and iPod’s click wheel — and immersed within a dynamic blur, which is unique to each playlist, while providing aesthetic continuity between all of CBC Music’s playlists.
Variations on the playlist identity include the introduction of a gold ring and glistening ‘snow’ for Christmas; a red-white-red gradient ring for all Canadian playlists; and a special one-off variation featuring the rainbow flag for CBC Music’s Pride playlist.
CBC Music Playlist Artworks
In 2019, to mark a decade of Drake’s career, Jesse Kinos-Goodin, Melody Lau, and the team at CBC Music published Drake’s Toronto, a long-form web feature mapping the artist’s history in his hometown. The project featured illustrative collaborations by Ben Shannon (line art) and me (colour and montage.)
Drake’s Toronto
I’m planning to add new and old work to this page. In the meantime, if you’d like to chat, connect with me on LinkedIn, or take a look at my earlier work at Phaidon Press and Wallpaper* Magazine.