Ernst and Young, LLP

Ernst and Young, LLP and Friends (2000)

Several of my coworkers and friends rode in the NY and DC AIDS races in 1999 - multi-day, multi-state bicylce rides to raise money for local AIDS charities. One of them, William Browning, had the idea to get Ernst and Young to become a national sponsor of the races, encourage its employees to ride or support the riders, and help make the rides happen.

I designed the logo (above) for this effort.The black and white version is displayed above, but there was also a colorized version with a sunrise behind the spokes, the ribbon colored red, and the text in yellow. Because it was designed for posters and t-shirts, I was able to use a much larger scale than is typical for most logos.

I also worked with the core organizing team to put together a video highlighting images of the previous year's race (featuring E&Y employees), motivational sayings, key facts about AIDs, and information on how employees could help. As the art director of the video, I ordered and paced it, designed the end cards and transitions, and generally made it look graceful and important. When our home-use software failed us in outputting the video properly, we took the components, a document outlining the 3 minute video's order of shots, transitions, placements, and placards, and took it to E&Y's corporate marketing group who were able to put the shots together for us, exactly as we had specified.

The video was shown at a national town hall meeting, and the response was fantastic. There were 70 employees alone riding in the DC AIDS ride, with half a dozen more volunteering their time to support the camps and rest stations. Members of our team were interviewed in major and regional newspapers, bringing good publicity to the company and the cause, and many people were transformed by effort.

Several members of the Fairfax E&Y Consulting group were also involved in helping Food and Friends, a local chairity for AIDS and Cancer patients, upgrade their on-line presence and be able to accept donations on-line. I helped guide the Director of Food and Friends in selecting the right local web-firm to do the design and development work.