26,000+ views

Unique visitors to the site

21 hours

Time spent interviewing Ed

97 assets

Custom elements created for the story

15 million strands

Amount of hair our developer lost

"I wasn’t sure how I was going to tell my story or establish myself as a public speaker, I only knew that I needed to start with a website. Through a series of interviews with myself and other family members, Volum8 came up with a unique experience that captured my story, giving me a platform to share it with the world. Since then, I’ve been speaking at various venues in the US and abroad."

Ed Devitt II

Inspirational speaker advocate against distracted driving Ed Devitt II picture

Branding

Making his mark

Through conversation with Ed, we conceived the motif of a dandelion. The visual similarity of a dandelion with its many seeds, to the neural network of the brain was uncanny. Those fragile seeds, once carried away by the wind could grow again in fertile soil. This was much like the rebirth of Ed’s own life and purpose since his TBI. After exploring many different styles of dandelion, we had settled on his mark.

Onboarding the story
When we first spoke with Ed, we imagined a simple five page site with SEO optimization so people could find him. After researching his niche however, we realized few were searching for speakers like Ed. We had to up the ante a bit. Shifting focus to the quality of his story, we storyboarded four chapters that could unfold within a parallax driven site.

"We were after the raw emotion that Ed’s story evoked. We wanted people to connect with it and be moved."

Joe Frederick
Graphic Designer picture

Website

Crafting the code

The biggest challenge for this project wasn’t writing the copy, or designing the chapters, but bringing the design to life in the browser. Hundreds of hours went into animating and positioning each element in Ed’s story responsively. The end result was a truly hand-crafted website with attention to detail. Lots of it.

Recognition

Leaving an impact

The day the site was released, social buzz traveled like wildfire. Twitter, Facebook, and the design community were alight with hundreds of comments from visitors. It was leaving the desired emotional impact. All in all, the project was a success, helping Ed book new engagements and receiving the recognition he deserved.

Oh yeah, and although it didn’t win a Webby Award, it was among the top 93% of submissions in New York.