Archive: R/GA – Will Gabrenya

Organization

R/GA — New York City, NY

My Role

Visual Designer

R/GA was my first large agency job, and my first job in New York. I had my first taste of real enterprise scale systems design. This was also the first time I worked long-term on a single account. The majority of my time was spent working on Verizon and Verizon Wireless. I also had a few opportunities to work on pitches and off-account projects, including an interesting in-store experience for American Eagle Outfitters.

Paying the bills with big telecom

While not as high profile as some other accounts at R/GA, the Verizon and Verizon Wireless teams were massive (60+ sized team), generated a lot of revenue, and afforded the ability to work on a surprisingly wide variety of projects. This included marketing landing pages on the website for specific devices or add-on services, UI and animated reels for the in-store experience kiosks, and plenty of e-commerce work.

DROID retail interactive signage

E-commerce for Verizon Wireless

Frames for a promotional video featuring an ancient phone

Providing parents with a little peace of mind

Occasionally, I got opportunities to work on projects outside of my main account. These tended to be for new business pitches, but once in awhile a gem of a project lands in your lap. 77kids was a subsidiary of American Eagle Outfitters, owner of brands including American Eagle, aerie, and Todd Snyder. The intent of the project was to create an interactive in-store experience that would allow kids to explore the brand while giving their parents a reprieve as they picked out clothing. The large scale tablet experience featured a kid-friendly curated digital “jukebox”, a selfie mode with painting tools, and a rudimentary “virtual try on” which was essentially a cutout of popular clothing items that kids would line up behind to “try on.” Aesthetically the UI was inspired by a ramshackle DIY treehouse or plywood fort with plenty of skeuomorphic elements that would appeal to kids.