Hi. I'm Ken Zinser. I do projects, and this is my blog.

Projects

Heads up! This is a work-in-progress list of creative projects and professional endeavors.

SIHB Expansion Sites

SIHB Intranet

SIHB Communications, Brand Identity

Visual identity and wayfinding for Indigenous People Festival

Hosted by Seattle Indian Health Board and part of Seattle Center’s Festál series, Indigenous People Festival is a day celebrating contemporary and traditional Native cultures. I developed the visual identity and wayfinding system for the event.

AIGA Seattle

Program development for the Changemaker Series

Since the summer of 2015 I’ve volunteered with AIGA Seattle to plan and organize the Changemaker Series, an annual program focused on design for social impact. In addition to program development and coordination, I designed the primary illustration and graphic language we’ve used to identify and promote the series for the past few years.

Urban Indian Health Institute

Website for Urban Indian Health Institute

As a Tribal Epidemiology Center, Urban Indian Health Institute develops reports and resources for Native-serving programs across the country. I designed and developed a new website to organize a vast catalog of products.

Pyramid Communications

Visual identity for Next by Workforce Southwest Washington

As part of Pyramid Communications, I crafted a visual identity system for a new initiative from Workforce Southwest Washington focused on preparing youth for successful careers.

Pyramid Communications

Visual identity and website for Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust

What began as a website update turned into an entire brand refresh for this philanthropic foundation based in North Carolina. I led the redesign effort and developed the new website, too, while at Pyramid Communications.

NAIS Inspiration Lab, KINETIK

Inspiration Lab is an initiative by the National Association for Independent Schools to showcase inspired learning within independent schools. As a designer with KINETIK, I helped define the overall strategy and direction of the project after engaging the client in a series of discovery sessions.

We created a community-driven site with content organized around themes that allowed the client to show the value and excitement of independent schools to parents and prospective students. Content is populated entirely by users, typically teachers or school administrators, who submitted stories and media through a simple front-end form.

My responsibilities included planning, concept development, user experience design, information architecture, visual design, front- and back-end development. Visit the site

DASL (Data and Analysis for School Leadership), KINETIK

DASL is a tool for school administrators to collect and analyze data across all NAIS-member schools. The tool spans over 33 years of data and includes information about students, enrollment, demographics, as well as operations and administration of schools. As a part of KINETIK, we worked with our client and their software development vendor to refine the user experience and redesign the interface of their offering.

I was involved in the planning and strategy with the client, and primarily responsible for user experience design, visual and user interface design.

National Behavioral Health Network

An initative between the CDC and National Council on Behavioral Health, the National Behavioral Health Network serves as a resource hub for organizations, healthcare providers, and public health professionals seeking to eliminate tobacco use and cancer disparities among individuals with mental illnesses and addictions. Users can filter through resources based on topics or tags, search the entire site, or peruse curated collections of resources defined by the client.

As the primary designer on the project, I drove the site’s content strategy and information architecture, user experience design, visual design, front- and back-end development. Visit the site

ASCE Game Changers

Game Changers is a campaign by the American Society of Civil Engineers highlighting the most promising infrastructure improvements being implemented today. The site showcases a growing collection of projects that can be filtered by theme or viewed by location on a map. I worked with KINETIK on the site’s planning, visual design, front- and back-end development. Visit the site

National Journal Group

National Journal (a part of Atlantic Media Company) is a research and insights company, and one of the most trusted sources of information in Washington. As a Senior Designer, I worked across departments to support a wide array of business functions. I was responsible for collaborating with many stakeholders to produce work, from advertising and sales, to events, to subscriptions and membership services.

Projects typically involved: designing materials to support revenue generation, including proposals and presentations; executing print and digital ads; designing identities and environmental graphics for events. I created and implemented new design systems and templates for marketing materials, while also contributing to an overall brand refresh and website redesign.

Media Kit Microsite (Visit the site)

School and Student Services by NAIS

School and Student Services is the financial aid division of NAIS, helping connect hundreds of thousands of students to independent schools. As a part of KINETIK we helped move the site onto a new platform, while reorganizing the content to optimize the experience for both schools and families.

My responsibilities included planning and strategy, information architecture, user experience design, visual design, front- and back-end development. Visit the site

Washington Wine Industry Foundation

Force 3

Force 3 is a large network security company based in the Washington metropolitan area. As a designer with PCI, I led the redesign and development of a new website for the company. The site outlined Force 3’s range of existing services while providing flexible templates to communicate future offerings. As part of the redesign I developed a system of iconography to help communicate the various topics and themes within the client’s business.

I was responsible for planning, information architecture, user experience design, visual design, front- and back-end development of the site.

Created with PCI Communications.

Dirty Laundry Magazine

Dirty Laundry Magazine is an online publication featuring interviews and original essays from contemporary visual artists. I designed and developed the website, creating a flexible template system that the editors can use to customize the layout of each article. Visit the site

NEXT at the Corcoran

Seniors at the Corcoran have a unique opportunity to show their thesis work in an exhibition at the end of each year. For the class of 2012, the Corcoran changed the format of the exhibition, expanding the scope and giving it more prominence, while branding it under a new name. As part of Design Lab, a select group of design students working directly with the gallery’s design director, I helped craft the exhibition’s identity and collateral.

NEXT at the Corcoran is the exhibition showcasing Corcoran BFA degree thesis projects including fine art, photography and design. The Design Lab class designed the exhibition identity. Design Lab concluded that the best way to convey the diverse content of the show was through a dynamic wordmark system. The letters of the word NEXT were cut out of illustration board, then hung and photographed floating in space. Extensive letterfom explorations were conducted, which then led to a final series of thirteen unique wordmarks. These marks were represented alone, and/or sequentially, to relay the ever- changing movement of the hanging letters.

Other designers involved in the project: Katherine Carberry, Ronald Cortez, Derek Long, Nancy Palm, Michael Theodoran, and Victor Ware

Student Portfolio, Corcoran College of Art + Design

Much of the work I produced during my time at the Corcoran College of Art + Design is on Behance. I never got around to updating it, so my profile there is basically a time capsule. If you’re curious to see how I got started as a designer, take a look.

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Professional experience

Making health care make sense for those facing the greatest health disparities and inequities

I currently work at Seattle Indian Health Board, a Federally Qualified Health Center and Urban Indian Health Program offering culturally attuned care to the greater Seattle area while advocating for American Indian and Alaska Natives across the country.

In 2018 I joined SIHB’s new communications team with the aim of establishing a design practice. I developed visual communications standards and put systems in place to streamline workflows and build capacity. I also recruited and mentored other creative professionals.

Today I work with SIHB’s clinical directors and executive leaders to enact agency-wide strategic initiatives. I combine my training in design thinking facilitation with principles of service design, continuous process improvement, and organizational project management to provide adaptive frameworks our teams can use to collaborate, to care for our patients, and to serve our community.

Some of the major initiatives I’ve worked on over the past two years include:

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A history of client service, grounded in design for good

Before moving in-house at Seattle Indian Health Board, I spent most of my career with design agencies and strategic communications firms serving nonprofits and mission-driven organizations like American Society of Civil Engineers, Annie E. Casey Foundation, Human Rights Campaign, National Association of Independent Schools, and Ploughshares Fund. I worked closely with our clients and their stakeholders and was responsible for the design and development of interactive products from discovery to delivery.

I’m slowly but surely revamping my design portfolio.

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