A Natural Gas Centric Company

The objective of the AGL experience.

AGL Resources was one of my first jobs and has preserved itself as one of the most influential experiences in my career. The job gained me insight into the corporate world of design and the complexities of working in a team oriented atmosphere. While at this job-site, I worked on many projects but these few are the ones that really I triumphed over and required a large amount of commitment.

My first real job on the spot was a calendar.

One of the bigger undertakings at this job was the company's yearly calendar. It was always something that took a large amount of time at the company, but this year around it was my turn to take the bull by the horns. The calendar had always been completed in a traditional style, one that suited a corporate atmosphere without any real utilization of what this style should be. I wanted to make this calendar different by simplifying the design and getting rid of any extraneous branding elements.

The two versions of the calendar.

With the first version of the calendar, the one on the right in green, I felt there was a missed opportunity in its form and function to be more than just something to hang on the wall. I wanted to create another that could be taken with you and possibly used to hold notes and other things from company meetings. I created a second version, the one in blue is a more vertical format. This second version held all date information in the front and necessary company information in the back that could be easily referenced.

The Annual Report project.

During my internship at AGL Resources, the company had its Annual Report carried out by a design firm for print. However, AGL is gracious enough to provide its publication online. Instead of outsourcing the project, the company assigned me to carry out the annual's online version.

How to carry over a print style into web.

One of the problems with adopting an Annual for web is the amount of content that is contained inside the document. The annual for 2009 was thoroughly designed page to page, paying attention to each detail. I wanted to keep this consistent with digital version of the book. Inside of the publication, each new chapter or section of the book is denoted with pleasant imagery and over-layed typography. I kept to this with the navigation and headers of each page. These images help the user keep in mind as to where they are in the book online.

Making interactivity intuitive and flexible.

With the navigation, I had to keep in mind that it needed to accommodate the large amount of content. I kept the top navigation static in its form, but dynamic in its interactivity so that users have a hierarchy of navigating the site. Under the main navigation sits two buttons that either guide the user back or forward a page, this helps with accessibility for the page. When the site reaches the financial section of the the annual, a bar of the different parts of the section appear allowing the user to quickly reference a different area. Lastly, once inside the different parts of the financial area, a small but substantial navigation is to the left of the body copy, making it easier to find specific clauses.

How to bring creative and original ideas to a corporate project.

One of the harder obstacles during my internship at AGL was introducing any type of creativity that challenged the norm. Typically projects like this wall art are simply branded with stereotypical imagery and one of the company's logos. I felt that with this wall art there was a chance to bring a real idea into place. The client at the time wanted to take old images of appliances and put them against a simple background with the flame you see in the center. While this idea made sense on paper, it wasn't logistically sound for this type of production. The size it needed to be was too large, and the idea was compromised by fact that the layout didn't lend to straight imagery on a background. Instead of taking the normal route, I decided to represent the appliances with dynamic typography, that made for a playful and interesting layout. The client really enjoyed this idea, and with some tweaking the final product was installed as you see to the right.

Natural Gas: It's elemental