Overview:
REI Adventures was growing very quickly, and as such the processes were very outdated for the kind of business it was bringing in. One man was creating all of the assets and pages for the entirety of the multi-million dollar portion of the business. Another problem was that he was spending 4-8 hours creating these maps using illustrator, and copying images out of another document to keep the consistency.
He was thinking about how many interns to bring in to take over this process, and I proposed that we streamline the process first so that we wouldn't need to hire so many. We were able to save 1 salary, and get Adventures team (who had also been running parallel but separate from the main business) into the same design system, and software as the core business.
Goal
Collaborate with the Adventures team to update their processes
Role
UI Designer
Tools
Sketch, Abstract,
Timeline
August 2019
Finished process guide
It was a painful process getting a good .svg of the entire planet (broken up into chunks not to overwhelm the computers), as well as representations of all of the symbols the man running the department had poured so much of his life into. It was a really great process spending so much time with him though and seeing how intimate and passionate he was about "his way" and all the details he put into it.
I am proud to say that I preserved everything he liked about it from before, while making it easier for him to teach to new employees and give himself a break.
Navigating a store isn't like Google maps, despite what people intuitively think. There are a lot of other variables to consider:
Morgan Blair 2025
Seattle, Wa.