Creative Direction

As a creative director, I can assist you with ideation, strategy, and directing the creative process for video, infographics, presentations, and more. I regularly direct creative teams remotely from around the world on projects commissioned by Fortune 500 companies. As a conductor ensures that every part of an ensemble comes together in perfect harmony, I will coordinate with your creative team to ensure your vision is realized. Contact me today to discuss how I can help ensure harmonic implementation of your creative project.

Creative Director Portfolio

National Geographic Television

National Geographic Television approached Visually for a proof of concept and-eventually, a teaser for their upcoming show Mapology. The program mapped data that went BEYOND geographic. Since I specialize in this, Visually came to me to create the look and feel of the program. I developed the overall style guide for the show with my team. As a result, the show was greenlit by the network, and we went into production on, The Big Picture with KAL PENN. My team and I developed the bulk of maps and infographic sequences. You can stream the entire series on Amazon Prime.

Agency: Visually
Role: Creative Director
Creatives: Justin Poore, Andrew Davies, Anibal Maiz Caceres, Javier Reyes, Marco Bagni, Simon Ramsey
Support: Tasha Hardy

Watch the teaser for, The Big Picture with Kal Penn, here. Check out the show to see the results of Nick’s creative direction work.

Gerber Life Insurance Company

The Gerber Life Insurance Company entrusted their social video push to Visually, who trusted me with creative direction. We kept things fresh by working in styles varying from rotoscoping to character animation and beyond. Below are three of the strongest pieces I had the pleasure of directing, but you can see them all here.

Agency: Visually
Role: Creative Director
Creatives: Writing, Anni Murray. Design & Animation, Jonathan Reyes, Emanuele Colombo, Justin Poore

Inspired by The Morton Salt Girl’s 100th Birthday, Gerber Life commissioned Visually to stir up a similar emotional response with Who is Gerber Life. Writing by Anni Murray, animation by Jot Reyes, and creative direction from yours truly.

The Gerber Life Insurance Company wanted animation that was “more expressive,” than a standard explainer video for the web. I pinged Emanuele for animation, and we bounced around the idea of using primary colors and geometric forms instead of “traditional characters.” As a result, the client loved it, and I would write about the video years later in a post for Rock Content.

I worked with writer Chris Koseluk and animator Justin Poore on a series of holiday videos for Gerber Life Insurance. Above all, Uncommon Lessons I’ve Learned from my Dad, definitely had a LOT of character.

Scotiabank

I’ve been working directly with Scotiabank for the past few years as a creative director under contract, providing concepts and ideation for illustrations and data visualization on articles written on the Contently platform and published on Scotiabank’s Advice+ blog. Check out a handful of my favorite concepts from Scotia’s Advice+ blog. Concepts and ideation by Nick Vaka and illustration by the talented Shane Keaney and Niege Borges.

Agency: Contently
Role: Art Director
Creatives: Shane Keaney and Niege Borges

Bank of the West: Means & Matters

Prior to their acquisition by The Bank of Montreal, Bank of the West entrusted me to conceptualize graphics for their online publication, “Means & Matters.” I worked with talented graphic designers to add a distinctive visual look, while also ensuring banners, ads, and online experiences stayed true to the BOTW brand and were created to spec.

Agency: Contently
Role: Art Director
Creatives: Lee Glynn, Kirsty Munn

Please also have a look at the concepts and mood boards for the infographic, “How Millennials Are Shaping the Wine Business.”

DNS Made Easy

I worked with DNS Made Easy to reimagine their video strategy, which included the creation of an animated series of ad spots, educational videos, tutorials and-eventually, motion infographics. I collaborated with the company president on each script to ensure the information was accurate, helpful, and easy to consume. You can see a list of tutorials I wrote and produced in Camtasia and After Effects, here, and see some examples below.

Staff
Role: Art Director
Creative: Nick Vaka

I worked with company president Steve Job to communicate what made anycast DNS superior to unicast services and summed it up in just over a minute.

I wrote this script based on conversations I had with the company CTO and got the company president to approve the info before going into production.