Relevant Development
I ran my own web and creative studio for a decade — logo, packaging, and some of the web's first data-driven production workflows — for clients ranging from the American Heart Association to Avid Golfer Magazine.
2005 – 2015
Founder & President
- Founded and ran the studio for a decade (2005–2015) — a small team, with a developer and a production artist alongside me, plus outside partners brought in per project, but every client relationship ran through me
- Managed hosting and design for 30+ client websites at once, alongside marketing and creative services spanning collateral, logo, and packaging design to advertising — banner ads to outdoor — and search engine marketing
- Client roster spanned nonprofit to insurance to media — American Heart Association, Unitrin Specialty Insurance, Avid Golfer Magazine, American College of Emergency Physicians, and Texas Association of Film & Tape Professionals
- Owned long-running client relationships end to end — ongoing hosting, design, and webmaster duties, including a multi-year relationship with Avid Golfer Magazine and its iDealGolfer property (now GolfMoose)
- Ran large-scale email operations for that same relationship — iDealGolfer alone sent over 1M emails a month, and I personally managed sender reputation and deliverability compliance at that volume
- Built early data-driven production workflows — an InDesign data merge that turned the Texas Association of Film & Tape Professionals' member data directly into its finished, print-ready annual directory each year
Web & Data
For a statewide film-industry association, I built one of the web's earlier data-driven workflows — an InDesign data merge that turned member data directly into a finished directory. For Unitrin Specialty Insurance, the 'Get Credit Smart' campaign spanned microsite, email, and print. And for Avid Golfer Magazine, an ongoing relationship — site management and large-scale email marketing operations, including sender-reputation work on a list sending over 1M emails a month.
Data-Driven Flash Microsite
Built for the American Heart Association — I designed the interface and user experience, created every animation, and produced the web banners that promoted the campaign. Flash is long gone, but in 2006, a site that returned live, searchable results straight from user data was genuinely advanced for its time.
Product Branding, Packaging & Visualization
Naming, identity, packaging, and the 3D visualization to show it off — including FRIDGET, a food-safety temperature monitor (name, logo, labels, packaging, and POS), and Pperks, a fashion accessory taken from concept through brand, packaging, and taglines. Both product shots here are 3D renders I built and lit myself, not photography.
Logo & Iconography
Across clients and campaigns, the same craft: translating the reason behind a business, product, or campaign into simple, powerful motifs that carry through everything that follows.
Toolkit
This was early-web work — the instinct on every project was the same: merge data and production into one system instead of two separate jobs. A directory built itself from a member list through an InDesign data merge; a website ran itself instead of getting rebuilt by hand every year.
The Context
I founded Relevant Development in 2005 and ran it as my own web and creative studio for a decade — branding, packaging, and web development for clients spanning nonprofit to insurance to media, including the American Heart Association, Unitrin Specialty Insurance, Avid Golfer Magazine, and the Texas Association of Film & Tape Professionals.
The Approach
I ran a small studio — a developer and a production artist worked with me day to day, and I brought in external partners as projects needed — but every client relationship and creative decision came through me, from collateral and packaging design to hosting, development, and the ongoing email operations long-running clients demanded.
What I Built
What I actually built was less any single client's brand and more a working system: a small studio, plus the right outside partners per project, running hosting, data-merge print production, and an email operation sending over 1M messages a month, with the sender-reputation and deliverability work that scale demands.
The Outcome
A decade running a small studio — strategy, identity, production, and code, with a developer, a production artist, and outside partners as projects needed — for a client roster spanning nonprofit to insurance to media, merging data into production workflows and running email at real scale, long before either had a common name.