Clarity & Craft:
My Portfolio
My portfolio brings together a wide range of projects that demonstrate my skills in technical communication, instructional design, user experience research, and visual branding. Across these samples, you’ll find user manuals, proposals, usability studies, process documentation, training materials, and creative brand systems. Each project includes a short summary and the full deliverables to give a clear picture of how I structure information, support users, and build effective communication solutions.
GoPro Project
As part of a collaborative, classroom-based project, my team and I developed a theoretical documentation overhaul proposal for the GoPro HD Hero2, including updates to the User Guide, Quick Start Guide, and HTML Help system. We evaluated the existing manual, identified areas needing improvement and proposed a more accessible, standardized, and user-friendly documentation set.
Although hypothetical, the project demonstrated our ability to analyze technical materials, collaborate effectively, and design comprehensive documentation strategies grounded in user needs.
Travel Brochure
This project is a New Mexico weekend-travel lifestyle brochure designed to highlight quick, accessible getaway destinations across the state. Using a visually driven layout with curated photography and short destination descriptions, the brochure showcases locations such as Cimarron Canyon, Santa Rosa, Ruidoso, Truth or Consequences, El Morro, and the De-Na-Zin Wilderness. Created as a design assignment, it demonstrates skills in visual composition, travel messaging, and organizing content that inspires readers to explore local outdoor adventures.
Logos
These logo designs—including my DF and DS monograms and the Snow & Quill Café concept—reflect my love of calligraphy, expressive typography, and meaningful symbolism. Each design uses flourished lettering, pen-nib imagery, and feather elements to highlight my connection to writing, reading, and creative communication. The feather and quill motifs also carry personal significance tied to my maiden name, Fairweather, and to the longstanding associations feathers have held for me. Together, these pieces show how I blend personal identity with visual design to create elegant, storytelling-driven branding.
Paws-itive Proposal Project
This project is a comprehensive advocacy and communication campaign addressing Albuquerque’s severe animal-shelter overcrowding crisis. Spanning a full proposal, a professional press release, a three-minute pitch, and a visual pitch deck, the work outlines the “Paw-sitive Spay/Neuter Albuquerque” initiative—an accessible, citywide program offering low- and no-cost sterilization services to reduce shelter intake, euthanasia rates, and operational strain. Through data-driven analysis, storytelling, and clearly structured deliverables, the project presents a humane, scalable path forward rooted in mobile clinics, voucher incentives, and strategic partnerships with local veterinary organizations.
Craigslist - Usability Testing Project
This project is a full usability and user-experience analysis of Craigslist.org, combining an artifact evaluation, an empathy-map interview, and multi-participant usability testing to understand how real users interact with the site. Through interviewing a small-business owner, completing structured tasks, and observing peer test sessions, the project identifies where Craigslist’s nostalgic simplicity still succeeds and where its outdated, text-heavy interface creates friction or confusion. The work synthesizes user emotions, behaviors, and pain points while offering practical, user-driven recommendations to improve navigation, accessibility, posting workflows, and overall usability — all while preserving the minimalist identity long-time users appreciate.
Research Papers
This Anthropology of Drugs project brings together ethnographic fieldwork, documentary analysis, and historical media critique to explore how drug cultures, policies, and public narratives shape everyday life. Through participant observation, interviews, and marketing/media analysis at Albuquerque cannabis lounges, alongside critical reflections on The House I Live In and Reefer Madness, the work traces how law, stigma, community ritual, and cultural messaging intersect to frame how drugs—and drug users—are understood. Together, these pieces illuminate how legalization, social space, propaganda, and moral language continually reshape public perception and lived experience.
Management Documents
This project is a comprehensive operational training and documentation suite created to support TSA Contact Center Specialists, Supervisors, and related teams. It includes detailed job aides, call-handling procedures, documentation standards, FOIA processing protocols, email-handling guidelines, coaching tools, team performance templates, and quality assurance standards.
Together, these materials form an end-to-end framework that standardizes how agents manage Service Requests (SRs), escalate cases, maintain compliance, and deliver accurate, legally defensible support within the TSA customer service ecosystem.
Snow & Quill Cafe Project
Snow & Quill Café is a fully developed theoretical business concept built around creativity, calm, and literary-inspired design. This project blends brand identity, menu development, onboarding documentation, and a complete communication strategy to create a cozy, writer-friendly café where guests can “write their day.”
The branding weaving personal symbolism into a polished, professional identity. Deliverables include a custom menu, press-ready materials, employee onboarding guide, and a website, all of which show how thoughtful design and clear documentation shape a cohesive business.
Trakkerz Tagz Project
Trakkerz is a fully conceptual, student-created product and user documentation project designed to mimic a real consumer technology release. The project includes a complete, professionally formatted user manual for Trakkerz Wireless Shoe Tracking—a fictional device-and-app system that helps users locate misplaced shoes through transmitter tags and the EZFind mobile app. The manual covers setup, safety, pairing instructions, troubleshooting, and warranty information, showing your ability to write structured, user-centered technical documentation for an imagined but realistic tech product.