Photo courtesy of HYPE

Houston Young Professionals & Entrepreneurs (HYPE) is Houston’s largest organization helping connect and empower leaders throughout the Houston Region.

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Thursday was the 2nd annual HYPE Impact awards, showcasing entrepreneurs contributing to the community in creative ways through service and professional endeavors.

There were many incredibly nominated people at the award show last night including Lawson Gow (The Cannon), Naomi Bhappu Irani (Accenture), Pierce Bush (Big Brothers Big Sisters), Micah Guynes (i45 Signs), Ashley Small (Medley, Inc.), Andria Balogh (STEM-E), Brittany Barreto (Pheramor), and Victoria Chen (Bridge-Year).

The award for “Emerging Business Leader” for 2018 went to Gibson Hall for his Professional Work, Creative Entrepreneurial Endeavors, and Giving Back to the Community.

Thank you HYPE and GHP for the support for our community!

This is my obligatory post talking about how excited I am to join The Home Depot, especially their UX Department. I’m joining as Senior Manager of UX, leading a team of UX Designers and Researchers to improve the shopping experience for Home Depot customers.

Some recent highlights by Home Depot’s UX:

L2 cites homedepot.com as the 3rd best experience out of all retailers
https://www.l2inc.com/research/big-box-u-s

Baymard ranks homedepot.com as the 2nd best experience
https://baymard.com/ux-benchmark/case-studies/home-depot

I’m looking forward from leading from the best and inspiring the UX team to continue pushing the limits of what’s possible to give our users the best experience possible.

Voyage reached out to me for a long form interview about how I got to where I am. Give it a read here: http://voyagehouston.com/interview/meet-gibson-hall-gibsooon-com-heights-montrose/

This post is a shout out to the creative team at Decode Digital, for producing work that has resulted in 10 Crystal Awards, recognized by American Marketing Association (AMA). The Crystals are the ONLY marketing awards show in Houston that gives awards based on DATA, which is huge at Decode. This work wasn't only pretty, it was effective at reaching our clients goals. 

Under this past year of my Creative Direction, Decode was able to win 10 Crystal Awards for: 

• Email Communications: Single - Decode's Holiday Card

• SEM - CHI St. Luke's Health Emergency Services

• Shoestring Marketing ($7,500 or less) - CHI St. Luke's Health Veteran's Choice Campaign

• Event Promotion: 2 or More Events - January Career Events at CHI St. Luke's Health

• Advertising: Online Video - Magical Winter Lights Online Video

• Advertising: Paid Display - Jerry Built Rich Media Display

• Advertising: Paid Social Media - Magical Winter Lights - Paid Social Media Campaign

• Advertising: TV Campaign (Two or more) - Baylor St. Luke's Medical Group - We Know Better Campaign

• Elements of Advertising: Copywriting - Jerry Built Copywriting

• Website: TEAM Industrial Services, Griffin Creative, InkSpot Communications & Decode Digital TEAM Industrial Services - Website

It's been a joy getting to work with such a young and creative bunch at Decode. I love seeing what happens when you bring brilliant minds together for collaboration. Cheers to the awards, Decode!

Mini Mural Project Team: Gibson Hall with Co Founders of UP Art Studio, Noah & Elia Quiles.

Last week was the 3rd annual Tourism Incentive Program (TIP) Awards and awarded 21 Houston-based organizations with a total of $275,000 to help make Houston a better destination for tourists. 

This past year was HUGE for travel and visitors coming to Houston. Between the Superbowl, World Series, and several international festivals, over 20 million people visited Houston. 

Each organization was eligible to win money from Houstonfirst and Visit Houston if they could create a compelling program involving at least 1 nonprofit and 1 hotel in order to market Houston as a destination worth visiting. 

UP Art Studio won $10,000 from Houstonfirst and Visit Houston, and is partnering with Hotel Ylem, Omni Hotel Houston, and Houston Bike Share (BCycle).

Since starting the Mini Mural Project a little more than 2 years ago, UP Art Studio has helped over 40 artists paint more than 185 electrical control cabinets in Houston. We've had several requests for maps in order to help people go on Mini Mural tours. We're working with our partners to create Bike Tours, Walking Tours, and packages for visitors staying at Hotel Ylem and Omni Hotel. Be on the lookout for Mini Mural Tours happening soon!

Visit MiniMurals.org for an interactive map of the boxes. 

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View from The Downtown Aquarium

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David Mincberg, Chairman of Houston First and Jorge Franz, Sr. VP Tourism at Visit Houston presented the organizations with oversized checks. 

Other winning organizations include: Alley Theater, Buffalo Soldiers National Museum, Escuderia Charities, Freneticore, Fresh Arts / Spacetaker, Houston Bike Share, Houston International Dance Coalition, Houston Marathon, Lyc Concours, Mercury Baroque Ensemble, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston AfriFEST, Magical Winter Lights, San Jacinto Museum of History, Sea Star Base, Theater Under The Stars, UP Art Studio, Voila Lab, and Washington on the Brazos. 

Map of Mini Murals

 

New Mini Murals Painted in 2018

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UP Art Studio, winner of Tourism Incentive Program for Mini Murals Tour

Thank you, 2017

2017 was an incredible year for the city of Houston and I am happy to be a part of the history that took place this past year. My year was filled with many trips, changing living situations, getting a big promotion, graduating from Yoga teacher training, making lots of friends, and I can’t wait to see what all 2018 has in store. 

This is the first photo I took this year: January 3, 2017 along Buffalo Bayou.

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January 

The first trip I took in 2017 was to Cleveland Ohio. It was a father-son trip to visit my grandma and cousins in Ohio. We were able to see some snow, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (pictured in the background), and eat some really good pizza. 

January (con'd)

Following Cleveland, I spent a week in Colorado and skied for the first time! It was a lot more fun than I could have ever imagined and I can’t wait to go back in 2018!

January Super Bowl

Super Bowl 51 was no doubt the biggest event happening in Houston in January. Several restaurants and hotels opened just days before the Super Bowl, and the city was a wonderful host for the big game. 

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February 

I moved from EaDo to the Buffalo Bayou area and upgraded the view big time. I've caught so many sun rises, sun sets, rainbows, floods, snow, and have loved the new perspective on Houston. 

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March

I came back to Colorado! I couldn’t stay away… and coming back soon. 

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April

After 2+ years working for one of the biggest retailers, Academy Sports + Outdoors, it's time that I say goodbye because my new job is just around the corner.. 

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June

I was invited to be the featured speaker at the Greater Houston Partnership's luncheon. My topic was on User Experience and how every business can benefit from listening to their customers. The talk awarded me with plenty of cool job opportunities. 

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July

I started as Creative Director at Decode Digital, a traditional + digital advertising agency based in Montrose. I help oversee the developers, designers, and creatives at this booming agency and love the people I'm getting to work with!

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August

We learned what #HoustonStrong meant when Hurricane Harvey flooded our city. 

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August

This group of 31 fellow swans helped me live my fullest life this summer, participating in 200 hours of yoga teacher training. Love to all of these people. 

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September

I turned 30 years old and celebrated with family and friends. I also started teaching yoga at Buffalo Bayou Park, Spring Street Beer and Wine Garden, and Black Swan yoga.

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October

The Astros are World Series Champions and the city has a a huge smile after a rough summer with the hurricane. #HoustonStrong

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December 

Closing out the year with snow... The first time I've seen this much snow in Houston, so I build a little snow man. 

I'm looking forward to 2018 and can't wait to see what all it brings!

I was invited to a private dinner with other Instagram Digital Influencers to Tony's, Houston's oldest fine dining restaurant. Tony Vallone started Tony's more than 50 years ago and has hosted the last 8 Presidents for dinner. 

This intimate evening was spent enjoying lots of amazing food, beautiful dishes, delicious wine, and tons of laughs with new friends. 

#TonyLovesHouston

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Gibson Hall is introduced as Creative Director for Decode Digital, an interactive advertising agency based in Houston, TX. Gibson will oversee the entire Design and Development team, and lead the company based on creative direction. 

Decode specialities in digital marketing (search ads, social media marketing), traditional advertising (TV, billboards, magazine ads), and website design & development. Decode has worked in the Virtual Reality space, organized events, and has a team of heavy-hitting app developers. 

Gibson will work on the CHI St. Luke's Health account, as well as work with local restaurant groups, B2B ventures, local realtors, and family owned businesses. Gibson works with a team of hungry entrepreneurs, including CEO, Kathleen Perley. 

I visited the new art exhibit at The Museum of Fine Arts: Kusama: At the End of the Universe. The museum gets Digital Ambassadors together for a sneak peak of the exhibit so we can blog about it and share it. If you can't tell from these photos, it's definitely worth checking out. 

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The Greater Houston Partnership (GHP) helps build Houston's economy by joining like-minded business owners for fundraising, city planning, and ongoing development. The GHP hosts monthly luncheons, inviting Houstonians to share their stories about how they are helping shape Houston. 

Gibson was the featured speaker in June 2017, sharing what it was like growing up an entrepreneur in Houston, helping one of Houston's billion-dollar companies find success through Customer Experience, and how a city art program is transforming neighborhoods throughout Houston. 

The Museum of Fine Arts Houston invited me and other Digital Ambassadors to #MFAHAfterHours to preview the newest exhibit Pipilotti Rist. Pictures don't do the exhibit justice, and I recommend checking it out while it's in town!

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Responsive Product Details Page

ACADEMY.COM

Website Design, User Experience, Cross-Channel Marketing

As lead User Experience Researcher for Academy Sports + Outdoors, Gibson helped create omnichannel shopping experiences online, in the mobile app, and for associates in more than 700 stores. Gibson created experiences for Browsing & Navigating the website, Viewing Product Information, and Completing the Checkout Flow.

While working for Academy.com, Gibson led the UX research to completely rebuild the website to be Fully Accessible (ADA Compliant) and Responsive, while maintaining the same backend and no downtime.

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UX Process Defined and Followed

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UX Research Methods Practiced

Tree Testing

Card Sorting

Advanced Analytics

Quantitative A/B Testing

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UX Design For Academy.com

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Kam Franklin and Bun B representing Houston during the Super Bowl.

Super Bowl 51 came through Houston and I think the city did such a great job playing host. Downtown launched 7 new restaurants all within walking distance from Discovery Green, several hotels opened, and the game was incredible. 

On the flip side, traffic has been insane! Especially living near all of the mayhem downtown, I'm excited we had such a great week celebrating, and also happy it's over! 

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Kendrick Lamar at Discovery Green during Final Four weekend.

Houston hosted the Final Four and I was invited by #HoustonNoLimits to take some photos to share with you on my blog and on Instagram using that hashtag. This event is one of the many awesome events happening in Houston throughout the year. It's great to have Houston be such a great host city. 

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Panic at the Disco.

Thanks to @HoustonNoLimits for the media passes to capture the event!

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Star Pizza

Website Design, Development, WordPress

• Client: Star Pizza
• Completed: 2013
• Services: Web Design, Development, WordPress 

Star Pizza hired me to redesign their outdated website and provide a responsive, mobile-friendly website. Today, more than 60% of Star Pizza's traffic comes from mobile devices.

I'd love to help more restaurants get their website up to date. Contact me if you want a free website consultation.

BEFORE

AFTER

Current mobile website

Current tablet website

Project Info

Star Pizza, Houston Press Reader’s Choice Best Pizza in Houston, has 2 family owned and operated restaurants in Houston. When I first came in contact with the owners, the Star Pizza website was in a lot of repair. We quickly got to work, sketching out ideas while simultaneously trying just about every pizza on the menu and more (I recommend Starburst on Wheat).

Challenge

The former Star Pizza website was outdated and didn’t work on mobile phone. Not working on mobile phones not only is bad for customers (over 60% of web traffic is on mobile), but also hurts your Search Engine rankings. Google punishes companies that don’t think about mobile experiences, and it’ll hurt business a lot if Google doesn’t like your website.

Work Involved

The website involved setting up Wordpress, designing and developing the website, photographing pizza, photoshopping banners to match the restaurant marquees, and teaching the managers of Star Pizza how to edit the website incase items come on or off the menu. The project started by sketching designs with the client, moving to website graphic design, and then to the Wordpress development.

I set out to give Star Pizza a website that looked like their brand, gave customers easy access to the menu, learn about the Star Pizza family history, and look great for mobile pizza lovers.

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