Portfolio and Creative Expression

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Overview

A leading Canadian real estate and property management company issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) to modernize the gift card program across its mall properties. The RFP’s requirements included a fully integrated card management platform, custom-designed plastic cards, and a new card carrier. Our comprehensive bid successfully addressed the client’s needs, resulting in a $55 million contract win.

Due to an NDA, the client’s name cannot be disclosed. Some designs and terms have been altered to maintain confidentiality. The Galleria logo is a fake placeholder logo.

The Challenge

The client’s existing gift card program faced significant operational issues that limited its effectiveness and efficiency.

The primary challenges were:

Integration Difficulties: The platform struggled to integrate with other business systems, leading to data silos and a disjointed guest experience.

Operational Complexity: The system involved multiple, disconnected processes for ordering, fulfillment, and tracking, which created inefficiencies.

Product Design: The existing mall card design and carrier fail to deliver the elevated customer experience desired by the client. The card sleeves have a limited capacity, holding only one card per sleeve, which necessitates the use of additional inserts for promotions or multi-card packaging. There is a need to overhaul both the aesthetics and functionality of these touchpoints, ensuring the new solution delivers a premium brand impression and aligns with the client’s commitment to environmental responsibility.

Lack of Flexibility: The program could not easily adapt to new requirements or scale to handle corporate bulk orders.

My Role

As the Graphic Designer and Art Director, I led key creative and user experience initiatives throughout the project lifecycle.

I was responsible for:

UI/UX Design: Created the UI/UX design process from wireframing new operational flows to creating high-fidelity designs. This included mapping out all processes for four distinct user roles (Guest Experience Agent, Supervisor, Administrator, and Super Admin) to ensure the platform was intuitive and efficient.

Proposal and Concept Design: Designed the custom RFP response, including mockups and interactive UI prototypes that were instrumental in securing the contract.

Product Design: A fresh suite of mall-branded and rewards card designs was developed to reflect the client’s vision for a premium, revitalized gift card program. The design system extends seamlessly to the sustainable card sleeves, which can carry up to three cards and help reduce landfill waste. The kiosk checkout interface ensures that every customer touchpoint feels cohesive and thoughtfully considered.

Vendor Management: Sourcing and collaborating with third-party vendors to produce the custom carrier using FSC® certified cardstock, aligning with the client’s sustainability commitments.

The Solution

Our team developed a custom all-in-one card management platform tailored to the client’s needs. The platform streamlines key operations such as card ordering, tracking, bulk fulfillment, financial reporting, and guest service management. Its user interface (UI) was designed to eliminate workflow inefficiencies and enhance the user experience (UX) across all account types.

We integrated a multi-use proxy and barcoding feature, enabling faster and easier single card loading, combining, replacement, and efficient bulk management for corporate cards.