— My Role
Creative Direction
Client Advocacy
— Credits
Agency:
Fresh Consulting
Creative Director:
Rich Knepprath
UX Design Team:
Amber Franz
Marc Wallace
Justin Brunson
Ben Jensen
Program Manager:
Marissa Smith
Trace Register offers ORIGIN, a global SaaS platform that empowers seafood supply chain companies to use traceability data to verify and communicate the journey of the products they sell. As a lean team without in-house designers, Trace Register partnered with my team at Fresh to reimagine and transform the platform into a more intuitive and user-friendly experience—designed to not only improve current workflows but to help capture net-new business for the future.
Project Goals
• Redesign legacy platform (TR5 → ORIGIN)
• Improve data trust, usability, and audit readiness
• Refresh and rebuild marketing website on tight timeline
Key Moves
• Stakeholder workshops → vision alignment + UX framing
• Deep dive into user workflows + data integrity issues
• Elevated brand expression for digital platforms
• Ground-up restructure + redesign of marketing site
• WordPress → WebFlow in 5 weeks
Results
• +62% improvement in task completion
• Reduced support tickets + onboarding friction
• Cohesive UX + brand story across product + site
• Foundation for future growth + feature scalability
As the Creative Director on this project, my focus was to elevate the story of traceability—translating Trace Register’s technical power into a platform users could trust and navigate with confidence. This project was about more than interface polish. It required design leadership to align stakeholders, guide a complex redesign, and evolve a legacy product into something modern, digital, and deeply usable.
The Challenge
Redesign the platform interface to make it significantly more intuitive, streamlined, and centered around the quality of data—while supporting Trace Register’s broader business goals. At the same time, the company’s marketing site needed a visual refresh, with a tight deadline tied to upcoming internal initiatives.
One of the most pressing functional goals: To improve data completeness so traceability audits are less disruptive to daily productivity.
The legacy version of the platform, TR5, had reached the limits of what it could offer. Inconsistent user flows made data entry cumbersome and unreliable, leading users to question the accuracy and trustworthiness of traceability records. And when the data is difficult to trust, the impact goes beyond usability—it undermines confidence in the story of sustainable seafood itself.
Aligning Vision
We began the project with a series of collaborative workshops alongside Trace Register’s stakeholder team to align on a shared product vision, define the core challenge, and clearly articulate what success would look like for the global redesign effort.
Through these sessions, we identified three key opportunity areas and translated them into a set of “How might we” statements—guiding principles that would shape our approach moving forward.
What began as a plan for holistic interface refinements quickly evolved into a broader, more strategic initiative. Uncovering deep data integrity challenges, we recognized the need for advanced design thinking and expansive UX leadership to reimagine the platform’s very foundation.
Getting to the Biggest Problems First
Our redesign effort was about more than a fresh coat of paint. It was a strategic evolution rooted in improving the quality and integrity of data from the ground up—while also delivering an interface that’s elegant, focused, and empowering for users in a high-stakes, high-complexity industry.
We prioritized solving the issues that would deliver the most value to users:
• Accurate data entry the first time
• Clear error handling
• Visual feedback on data completeness
Simplifying how users enter and interact with data was central to the redesign—and key to restoring trust in the system.
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Exploring & Expanding the Brand’s Periphery
Trace Register’s brand was built with care—but primarily for print. As we explored early design directions, we focused on extending these elements into a digital environment in ways that felt natural, modern, and elevated. Our goal was to bring clarity and function to the interface without losing the brand’s personality.
Early aesthetic exploration addressed the unique needs of digital platforms—data density, accessibility, and storytelling—while creating a consistent visual system that could scale across both product and marketing touch-points.
Reflecting on the Impact
This project was a testament to what can happen when a team is empowered to think deeply, collaborate openly, and execute with intention. I’m proud of how we transformed a complex, legacy product into a modern, trusted experience—on a tight timeline and without cutting corners. As a creative leader, I’m committed to meeting clients where they are, aligning with their vision, and delivering results that feel both unexpected and exactly right.