Ryland Cook

Currently design lead at Whisper.

At Vertical Mass, I am responsible for all UI/UX, identity and interactive infographics for sports teams, brands and celebrities. As design lead, I ensure that every side of our product is simple to use, consistent and cohesive.

As design lead at Thinknear, I creative directed all web and branded materials, worked with the marketing department to create and refine all client-facing materials, and alongside product to improve the admin UX.

I was brought on to Match.com as a designer and art director to help develop a new way for users to interact with the Match.com interface. My small team, comprised of a researcher, a project manager and myself, were tasked simply to, "come up with something new, probably utilizing video." We set off down several paths before finding one that we felt confident about. In six months we developed a handful of different brands, websites and mobile apps to accompany them. This page is a spread of those projects, from the roughest sketches to finished designs. Just a heads up that project name started as Glanced, before being ditched for the primary company, Match.com.

Delightful.com curated events and activities directed at couples looking to branch out from the norm. The goal of this video was to describe how Delightful works while showing the diverse activities we provided to subscribers. With a shoestring budget, I paired up with Director Jordan Freda to write, build and creative direct the video you see here. 

The Delightful neighborhood guide was a great new way for anyone to discover the best activities in each of San Francisco's eclectic neighborhoods. Here is one of the many pages I designed, as well as a handful of infographics designed for each area. All design, illustration and photography was done by me.

Selk'bag is a company that makes sleeping bags that are actually onesies. Can you think of a better thing to hang out in? We wanted to showcase the different reasons that they are awesome while keeping the fact that they are actually designed for camping in the forefront. For example, you can be ultra-comfy, and still escape from bears. I got to be a creative director on this project, which made it extra fun.

What if you had a time machine, but you weren't allowed to use it for anything except for fun stuff? Just think on that for a second.

I used a '96 Volvo as the base of this installation, then a bunch of highly technical science gear for the rest. 

Kiss.com was a dating site that was unique from others. Instead of writing down their interests, users got to skip that whole reading thing and just look at a bunch of fun pictures. I illustrated all 256 of those pictures in badge form, which was rather challenging at times. Coffee lover? Easy. Distinguishing scotch from whisky in a 66x66 pixel badge? Not so easy. Oh - I also made a ton of banner ads, and likely spammed you at some point with borderline pornographic content. You're welcome?

The Hell Shack was installed by the pool at San Francisco's infamous Phoenix Hotel for a hotel-wide exhibit. I built the structure, and assembled all sections off-site before moving it poolside. I was curious to see if people would treat what was technically "a piece of art" as such, or go with the flow and rage it hard. Maybe it was the all the rock and roll history at the Phoenix, or maybe people just love to party. Either way, the place was officially used to it's fullest potential the night of the opening. (Some teens apparently even did it in the loft.) Why just look at something when you can dive in head first? 

This is a landing page I designed for a fun app called Twhodo, which is startup speak for "to do." The app helps you do your favorite activities on a schedule, all while meeting new people. 

While working for the company that owns Tinder, someone wanted to make an app that was essentially the same thing, just a little more playful and less overtly hookup oriented. We gave it a shot with Essentially, which I designed. It did pretty well for a while, but when OkCupid Labs shut down, so did the app. 

In a way, it's the order of operations for the human condition. 

Making logos is one of my favorite things I get to do. Here are a few I've made.

A few paintings from the series I did based around swimming pools. Enjoy!

Beware the Domestic Booby Trap. This was really fun. I got to dream up numerous ways people could mindlessly hurt themselves around the house. It was even more fun to recreate the circumstances to shoot the photos, and see if they actually worked.