IBM Security / DeLaune & Associates
With 8,000 dedicated professionals around the globe, IBM Security is the largest enterprise security platform in the world. Protecting critical client data–while aiming to maintain the culture and innovation of a startup–they allow their customers to thrive in the face of cyber uncertainty. Cyber Security is one of the fastest growing and most important industries in the world today. Even a single breach can wreak havoc across a network and cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
DeLaune & Associates is an Austin based women owned small business with more than 30 years of experience in the technology sector, with expertise in content marketing and brand strategy. They are uniquely poised as one of only a half dozen contractors in the United States with a licensed agreement to work on highly sensitive IBM Security content. They run a tight ship, and their design and written content have won more than 200 global marketing awards throughout the years.
Building a new interactive template system
My first assignment was to create a brand new set of interactive digital document formats that were optimized to the client needs, with special consideration for a clear workflow that involved writers, word counts, and incorporated a wide range of visual material (photographic, data, charts and graphs, infographics, etc.) and delivery platforms. The work was created as a digital first template system, with implementation meeting specific needs for IBM Security, primarily interactive PDFs as well as UI/UX wireframes and high resolution mockups for digital development using HTML, CSS and custom Wordpress templates together with developers.
Once the schematics were in place with screen size dimensions and layout, content structure and typographic hierarchy understood, these design decisions were moved into a digital space. The consistent grid was set up, including columns and rows, baseline grid as well as a matching pixel grid to bring consistency to all elements on the screen.
Multiple variations of this grid structure were developed to allow for a flexible system, that could work independently from the type and style of content that any particular project required. Another important consideration in this work was the navigation. Depending on whether a project was 1 page, or as many as 150, different styles of local and global navigation were used, sometimes with embedded sub navigations, sometimes using advanced features from Adobe Acrobat for PDF documents with longer technical specs that did not require a TOC or traditional forms of navigation. Emphasis was always placed on the user, and to ensure that a good UX was always in mind and that the document became user centric, whether is was exported as an interactive PDF, or sent to a developer to build out on a variety of platforms and systems.
X-Force Report
Of all the many hundreds of projects completed in this role, the largest and most demanding by far was the annual X-Force Report. Generally, our 3 writers and head editor and technologist created all the content in our agency’s output. However the X-Force Report was a special beast. Compiled all year by the best and brightest IBM Security associates, this report showed a who’s who and what’s what of cyber crime from the previous year. Content dense with specific data, graphics, maps and examples, this was a project that required the utmost focus and attention to detail. An entirely new design and layout was required for this report. Fortunately, I was up to the challenge, and this work was extremely well received, with the The IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence Index 2018 winning a prestigious Platinum award from the MarCom Agency Awards of that year.
The report was translated to multiple other languages, including French, Spanish, Japanese and Korean (seen below) and others.
In addition to the report, there was also a supplemental infographic that displayed some of the key data in an accessible and direct format. All aspects of the report and accompanying assets were heavily scrutinized, required a highly functional layout and content system. In this Ishihara-esque color dot system, all form carries meaning. Getting every single dot, color % and element in place and in correct proportions with the size of the data breach and cyber attack was highly demanding, but also extremely satisfying.
Technical Illustrations
Additional digital documents and eBooks
Agency promotional video onscreen graphics
To help generate new business leads, the agency created a short promotional video highlighting some of our capabilities and expertise in writing, design and marketing collateral for cyber security and high tech industries. We teamed up with Jeff Hastings and his team at Elephant Productions from right here in Austin, Texas to complete the task. In addition to taking some preliminary scouting photos to help identify potential spaces and lighting for the film crew, creating a visual storyboard, explaining the agency’s design vision especially as it relates to IBM’s rich design history, I also created a series of on-screen graphics that were used in the final short film to help tell the story of this award winning agency.
All work created also had to meet a strict set of guidelines for accessibility and functionality, so that it could be viewed and heard by individuals with many forms of visual and audio impairments. Please see section titled “Infographics” to see some of those project types created while at DeLaune, several of which were award winning entries.
Date completed: 2016 - 2019
Client: DeLaune & Associates
Location: Austin, Texas
Art Director: Tyler Johnson
Project Manager: Amy Valentine
Writers: Ernie Wood, Tim Lord, Laura Lambeth
Head Editor: Sara Richardson
UI/UX: Jeff Rose
Technology Lead: Brian Silverman