DOUGLAS MONTAGUE

As Creative Director of the Microsoft Office Creative Studio I had the opportunity to envision and execute the next expression of the world’s leading productivity brands for Microsoft’s flagship productivity product.

Over the course of sixteen months I built an internal creative studio from scratch (hiring people, developing processes, and building the business) that was powered by a team of creative talent in Palo Alto, London, and Redmond.

The studio worked closely with engineers and marketers to influence, create, and execute compelling brand experiences that drive brand love and business value in product UX, video, Web, packaging, third-party retail stores, tier one events, global engagement programs, paid media, social, relationship management content, and other digital marketing channels.

Creative director for a small agile software startup focused on innovating and designing beautiful phone-first productivity apps. .

Responsible for helping develop product book that outlined key pillars, target audience, market advantages, product road-map, and foundational creative principles.

Applied the foundation by co-designing the UX. Designed the visual layer, which included all the main layouts in the product, the iconography, graphing style, color pallet, and typography.

Insured pull-through of foundational creative principles by designing all of the brand and marketing materials associated with the product. (Logo, color pallet, typography, messaging, Web, Press materials). Presented technology to Fortune 500 companies for possible acquisition. Acquired by Microsoft in October 2014.

Creative Director of product, brand, and marketing for a photo management and presentation software startup focused on creating a single user experience across multiple platforms and devices. (Launched October 2014)

Helped deliver the product book, an end-to-end plan that outlined the product features, pillars, target audience, business goals, market scenarios, and interaction/design principles.

Developed the foundational creative principles of the product experience and brand, including leading pre-design creative sessions with CEO, Development Manager, Product Manager, and Marketing Director. Documented outcomes by creating initial product and brand attributes; by writing and designing a comprehensive UX style guide; and by art directing/co-creating a ten-minute product vision concept video.

Co-designed the product UX. Specifically owned the visual layer which included designing the layouts and content presentation for the entire product. Content presentation includes typography, iconography, color, common controls, stage/environment, and HUD.

Wrote, designed, and delivered the brand book for the product and company. The book included designing all the necessary graphic elements for a comprehensive brand identity (logo, voice, attributes, etc.). Applied branding to all marketing, retail, partner, event, and corporate ID executions.

Created and managed all go-to market collateral including: Web & social strategy, retail POS & POP, paid advertising, PR, co-branded launch event with Popular Photography in NYC, and U.S. trade-show presence.

Helped define and design the Windows Phone 8 brand. Specifically art directed an award-winning brand book; brand guidelines; twelve brand videos and internal website; and HTC, Verizon, AT&T co-branded logos and guidelines. Acted as internal brand spokesperson by presenting at a series of events to the entire Windows Phone organization.

Creative directed the Windows Phone 8 launch event working with multiple global event agencies, PR, and VP of Marketing for Windows Phone. Designed the Windows Phone campaign and display collateral for all Microsoft Retail Stores nationwide. (Fixture graphics, in-store videos, display structures.)

Creative directed an award winning influencer event called Windows Phone Night Market: a five city launch tour that brought people together in an exclusive community-like digitally amplified environment. (Success metrics = 6000+ attendees; digital reach of 8 million+)

Art directed the launch of the Windows Phone 7 and 7.5 brands (included visual, messaging, audio, video) across all digital marketing channels worldwide, touching 30+ million people.

Art Directed the Windows Phone 7 announcement and day of launch events working across multiple global event agencies, PR, and executive management; managed all messaging, printed and digital event collateral, and 3D installations at event locations in San Francisco, New York, London, and Germany with exclusive concerts featuring Katy Perry and Maroon 5. (Success metrics = 2,100 positive press articles within week of launch.)

Designed all Windows Phone special offer partner advertising for Xbox, Zune, Microsoft Office, AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T- Mobile, and ESPN brands; wrote and designed all co-brand guidelines and creative examples; managed partner editorial and creative executions across digital and retail; total time to market was two weeks; resulted in 17% increase in Windows Phone sales week over week; plans created were adopted as a Windows Phone marketing best practice and replicated by four other Microsoft groups seeing same sales results.

Art directed all digital marketing communications, worldwide events (Mobile World Congress) internal corporate-wide communications, and partner marketing. Managed multiple creative agency partners.

Planned, designed, and deployed the first common UX platform across all Windows Phone online marketing channels worldwide (Web site, Mobile, Windows Catalog, Support, & Training); new UX resulted in 47% increase of click-through to partners and a raise in YOY site customer satisfaction from 39% to 44%.

Designed the Total Access Owners program brand, touching roughly 2.9 million subscribers per month; tasks included execution of brand book and core brand elements (color, photography, primary and secondary graphic elements, naming, logotype); total time from concept to market was 8 weeks.

Wrote and designed all Windows Phone ads placed across the Microsoft.com network of sites; Ads outperformed Microsoft ad benchmark by 200% compared to previous ad creative (2.5% vs. Microsoft.com 0.35% click-through rate).

Creative directed all online campaigns and events: Apple Compete; Ellen DeGeneres Breast Cancer Awareness; Mobile World Congress 2009; CTIA 2009; Meet Windows Mobile Consumer Campaign. (*Success metrics = 10-20% above industry average click-through to purchase rate)

Built and managed $10M+ budget; actively managed agency/vendor contracts and teams; assigned all projects and managed resource allocation.

Designed and implemented Microsoft’s most prominent brands (Windows, Office, Servers, Dynamics, Microsoft) through multiple product releases in both Web marketing and Web UX for 80+ Microsoft.com Web sites, domestically and internationally.

Researched, wrote, and designed a brand strategy for Microsoft’s corporate Web presence (Microsoft.com) that aided in repositioning it from a product information site to a vital marketing and sales tool (2010 data: $52M in direct sales, $600 million in direct acquisitions of our products/services).

Built a cross-discipline (business, editorial, design) team that managed and directed the yearly 700+ pieces of marketing creative delivered on the Microsoft.com home page seen by 16+ million unique visitors per month; implemented tracking, engagement, and review models to monitor results; increased marketing creative click-through by 40%+ between Jan 2005 through May 2007.

Lead the collaboration work-stream across multiple teams and disciplines (Brand, Advertising, PR, Business, and UX teams) to deliver a corporate-wide, Web-specific, brand policy guideline document.

Designed the Microsoft.com homepage UX through multiple releases, successfully driving customer satisfaction from high 30s to above 50%, and dissatisfaction from high teens to single digits; resulted in 1.6 million happier Microsoft customers per month.

Drove brand guidelines adoption through agency and subsidiary visits (Japan, Europe), Microsoft VP presentations, and internal-communications; resulted in 92% of the Microsoft.com network of sites world-wide adopting guidelines as policy, up from 25% over an eight month period.

Actively managed in-house and agency creative teams. Received the Microsoft Corporate Marketing Group (CMG) Gold Star Award given to the top 5% of performers working within the CMG organization.

Built and managed a design team of 10+ employees that successfully designed, deployed, and managed Microsoft’s first UX web platform, enabling a common user experience across the 10,000+ pages on the Microsoft.com domain. Drove design adoption of web technologies CSS, DHTML, XML, and XSLT.

Developed and implemented a graphic production model that managed the licensing and distribution of the 3,000+ graphics the team produced yearly for the Microsoft.com network of sites; cut world-wide production and distribution costs by more than 30% by implementing model.

Managed a $3M+ budget; managed all agency/vendor contracts and teams; assigned all projects and managed resource allocation.

1998 - Expedia.com, UX Design Lead
1996 - Mungo Park Adventure Travel Webzine, Design Lead
1995 - Microsoft Kids Group, User Experience Designer