Compass
Compass is an industry-leading real estate technology company that is swiftly transforming the industry as a whole. With the solutions-driven mindset of a startup and the sophistication of a luxury brand, Compass is the future of real estate. Compass believes that leading the industry requires the smartest tools built by the brightest minds across engineering, design, and strategy. In 2018 Compass grew from 6th to 3rd largest brokerage in America, increased sales volume from $15 billion to over $35 billion, increased its revenue from $370 million to ~$900 million and raised ~$445 million.
I joined Compass’ design team to develop agents’ personal brands and to design effective marketing materials that ultimately helped generate both brand awareness and millions of dollars in sales. The design team at Compass is stacked with talent, and I was happy to join them. We worked together to design marketing assets and develop a brand that will indelibly change the real estate industry. I created scores of efficacious print and digital marketing pieces—from billboards to luxury marketing books—that exceeded client expectations at Compass.
Print Design
Digital Design
Branding
Photography
Collaboration
Results
It's all in the details
Meticulous attention to detail and a dedication to sound design strategy are the through-lines of each project at Compass. Strategic visual storytelling and design consistency are paramount to the development of the brand narratives that distinguish Compass agents from the competition.
About the work
I created a wide breadth of marketing pieces under strict deadlines that demanded rapid turnaround for Compass and 70 of its agents. The images above are more than a small sample of my work at Compass; they represent the relationships I fostered and the trust I had to earn to help agents truly understand the value of a new design system. Guiding agents to discover the value of a new design system and brand direction took time and care but paid out tenfold. Once I was able to earn their trust, I was able to elevate the brands of our industry-leading agents through strategic visual communication.
I am truly grateful to have worked within a collaborative team of passionate designers and overall incredible human beings at Compass. Each work sample featured on this site is the result of close collaboration; the fingerprints of many talented designers undoubtedly cover many of my featured work samples. We worked as a team, without ego, to produce the most visually stunning and effective marketing materials in the industry. Don’t hesitate to reach out and contact me for more information or work samples.
Types of projects completed
• Billboard design
• Logo design
• Luxury listing books
• Listing books
• Magazine advertisements
• Digital advertisements
• Bench advertisements
• Newspaper advertisements
• Buying/selling process guidebooks
• Automated listing package template design
• Logo redesign for brand compliance
• Magazine advertisement template design
• Onboarding announcement + packet pages
• Logo vectorization
• Event sponsor banners
• Brochures
• Gate-folds
• Tri-folds
• Bi-folds
• One-sheets
• Postcards
• Business cards
• Letterheads
• Event invitations
• Door hangers
• Custom notepads
• Sign-in sheets
• Custom envelopes
• Photography: events and headshots
• Photo retouching
• Vinyl window signage
• Mapbox maps
• Market divider ads
• IT signage
• Social media Icons
• Digital signatures
• Email footers
• Event bar menus
• Holiday cards
• Custom notecards
• Flyers
Luxury listing books
Exclusively available for properties valued at $4 million and above, luxury listing books help agents convey their unique ability to sell extraordinary high-value homes.
Effective design
Compass Luxury Offerings enable storytelling of remarkable properties through elevated materials that communicate luxury with the utmost attention to detail. The images above offer a glimpse at one of the luxury listing books I created for one of San Diego’s top agents. Although this incredibly high-producing agent had a 100% success rate using the listing book I had already designed for her, she and our marketing team decided it would be advantageous to create a separate book for luxury listings above $4,000,000. This hardcover book looks and feels like it belongs on a coffee table and conveys the agent’s unparalleled ability to sell homes of spectacular opulence.
In my opinion, Compass luxury listing books do not merely give agents an edge over the competition; they are designed to make it undeniably obvious that no competition should be considered. How you do anything is how you do everything; this book communicates the agent’s uncompromising dedication to excellence and attention to detail through both the content and the design of the book itself. Luxury listing books are beautifully designed and act as a harbinger of the quality to come.
Custom agent logos
Custom agent logos are developed through a collaborative process that results in a memorable, timeless, and appropriate monogram to be used as a distinguishing element on all agent marketing collateral.
Clean and refined monograms
In an industry plagued by trite iconography, clip-art, raster logos and comic sans; it was my job to help agents distinguish themselves from the crowd with clean, scalable custom-designed monograms that communicate their professionalism and unique personal brands. The monograms I created are the result of a collaborative multi-week-long design process that involved workbook interpretation, sketching, rounds of critique and revision, presentation, refinement and finalization.
The work samples below include the logos that made final selection as well digital logo sketches that were either scrapped early in the design process or were not selected by the agents after my presentations. Although they aren’t all perfect, I believe some of them deserve to be resurrected from the logo graveyard. Some could be used elsewhere, and others reveal different design directions I took at the time. Names have been changed to prevent confusion to those who don’t read this section.
Photography
It pains me to use a screenshot to represent any of my photography, but I was busy working when Compass founder and CEO Robert Reffkin used my photography during his all-team-meeting presentation that was broadcasted to the entire company. I didn’t get the chance to ask the people I photographed for permission to use the photos I made, so I didn’t include them here. Nevertheless, I shot and retouched headshots, photographed events and retouched provided imagery at Compass.
Leaving Compass
I was fortunate to be surrounded by a team of kind, genuine and supportive people every day at Compass. I would have loved to stay with the team, but life called me to move across the globe; the team showed nothing but support.
I’m grateful for having spent so much time surrounded by the inspiring people at Compass in San Diego. I hope to see each of them again when I someday make it back stateside.