CLIENT: REI

PROJECT: Designing the REI Homepage and other web assets for REI.com. The HP changes about once every few days or so. Each of the following projects are either for different campaigns or different sales or clearance events.

MY ROLE: Product Designer on the Product Gear & Apparel Team at REI

PARTNERS: UX/UI Manager, Product Managers, UX Copy Writers, UX Researchers & Engineers

UX/UI Manager: Peter Newton, Andy Martin
Interaction Designer: Ian Palmgren
Product Managers: Jennifer Newell, Lisa Teigen
UX Writers: Natalie Lindula, Shelby Gonzalez, Delonna Harris

DATE: December 2020 - Present

TOOLS USED: Figma, Photoshop & Illustrator

CHALLENGE: The initial real challenge was that my first project at REI was also my first project ever using Figma and it was also the first time our team used batching for a project. I was also working with another new Web Developer during quarantine. We figured it out though! We had a kickoff meeting with our internal stakeholder and got all of the info we needed to start the project. I figured out how all of our Figma templates worked and the processes in which we do things and built out the Homepage and other Landing Page Way-finding Banners and the REI lead app slides from there. All other projects have similar challenges and solutions.

I focus a lot on diversity & inclusion, and accessibility as I think it’s incredibly important.

SOLUTION: For the first project featuring the Winter ‘21 campaign Fitness, I spent the initial research portion just researching and understanding the REI brand and REI’s internal Cedar UI Library System and Interface Guidelines. The Cedar team at REI manages the Cedar System separately. I then spent a lot of time researching current REI pages including functionality, image sizes, placements, etc. We had 2 Internal Creative Reviews and 2 Stakeholder Creative Reviews and I made adjustments based on feedback from those meetings. We also had an IQA before it all launched with the Developer to insure everything looked great. For each campaign, sale and clearance event - I research what assets are needed and then build out what’s needed from there. I work with Stakeholders, a Project Manager, UX Writers, another Interaction Designer and a UX/UI Manager.