Jason is worthy of a Plagioclase Award. Between his role with Harmon Brothers, the logo and rebranding along with leading Communication Designers to help bring out their best, make him worthy of a nomination. He’s been making waves and leading big change at CE this last year. Join me in my quest to get nominated.

Harmon Brothers Involvement

Over the past year, Jason has been more involved with the creative work with Harmon Brothers than anyone else at CE. He has been heavily involved in every stage for every video. He was part of the initial writer’s retreat that steered the direction of the videos and played an integral part in giving direction and feedback. He has been part of every script writing through the Harmon Brothers and has continued to help guide the direction as it relates to Covenant Eyes. Casting, filming, feedback; he’s been part of all of it. Shane, the director for the videos has come to see Jason as the main point of contact and stakeholder for the videos as they’ve moved along. But more than that, Jason was actually invited into the creative process to create illustrations as part of the final video. Harmon Brothers rarely uses their clients for design or illustrations, instead relying on their own team to provide creative elements. Jason is a rare one who actually contributed artwork to a video. The comic-book style of Jason’s illustrations not only impact the video in a big way, but also offer the opportunity to expand our reach through related marketing material; such as actual Covenant Eyes comic books featuring Colossal Man. His impact and involvement in this work cannot not be understated.

Branding Re-Design

Jason’s first act as a Creative Director was a bold one; redesign the logo and brand in a way that had never been done before. As we were working with Harmon Brothers, during the initial writer’s retreat, they indicated that our logo was causing some negative reactions in their focus groups. This continued to come up as we worked with them over the following months. Jason did not take this advice lightly, rather he plotted. Jason had a branding firm in his back pocket that he had met previously. He understood the value and reasons why a rebrand was important and how well the timing would work with the videos and change. When the time came that he had the opportunity to make change, he was ready. That foresight and boldness are nothing to sneeze at. I also appreciate Jason’s humility in the process. Jason has taught design and has been doing design for around 20 years. Another person may feel up to the task to do a redesign themselves. Instead he sought to hire an outside firm with an outside perspective and proven track record for rebranding. The results are speaking for themselves. He has walked with that team through the process of understanding our mission, background and direction of our organization. He’s helped guide them through feedback as they went through many designs. He also demonstrated change management better than most. He worked with the leadership and sought their blessing first, bounced feedback off middle-leadership, discussed the changes with designers and unveiled the changes to the whole company. He has been leading with excitement such as the water bottles. He continues to work with department leaders to roll out changes. In addition to that, he is continuing to build off of the logo work to design a cohesive brand that represents who we are and we want our customers to see us as.

Mentoring

Jason has put an emphasis on principles of design in a way that has helped our designers grow in a big way. He guides them through tough projects, challenges them to stretch their skills and shows them how much he believes in them. He is empathic to difficult working situations that arise from time-to-time and helps the designers grow in those working situations. He has noticed where the designer’s strengths are and tries to give them opportunities to flex those skillsets.