MY LIFE'S MISSION
When I was 14, I decided that I needed to make a Burton catalog. Snowboarding was still somewhat in its infancy, but the Burton catalogs defined the lifestyle and were essentially coffee table books for a season. Each year the brand would completely reinvent itself, and the mission was to make it new. I worked at Burton twice, leaving the first time when I thought my chance at this role wasn't going to happen, and then was hired back specifically to not only build the catalogs, but also to lead the web site (which quickly grew into all brand efforts - packaging, advertising, etc).
This catalog was done in men's and women's versions, each 80 pages and in 6 languages because they were distributed globally. I was accountable for all components of this from the overall strategy, brand look and feel for the season, storyboards, photo shoots, copy, and ensuring it landed to customers on August 1st.
My overall success on this project was driven by making it functional. Previous catalogs had focused on technical shock and awe, which was overly complicated in hopes that users would just assume the product must be good because they didn't understand it. Instead, my focus was to evaluate the overall project goal which was to sell product. So, I focused on making it as easy as possible to understand the huge line, and provide just enough information to make a purchase decision.
My number one measure of success on this? Jake Burton telling me that it was the best catalog the company had ever made. After that nothing else mattered.
