www.nicpadula.com

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“
“
I solemnly swear, I will help
change the world for the better

2. 2 | PORTFOLIO
6 initial concepts • 3 revisions
January 2012
OVERVIEW
Branding
WILDWOOD CATERING
This was my first experience getting to build
a brand from the beginning. In December
of 2011, Ben Wood from the Fire and Water
Restaurant group, asked if I would create
the identity, website, and social media of his
newest venture, an upscale catering company,
WildWood Catering.
BUSINESS CARDS

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Brand
Development
In 2012, I was promoted at the Fire and Water restaurant group to help
plan, create, and design a brand Identity for their newest concept,
UMelt: A Gourmet Grilled Cheese Store.
UMelt is a Quick-Serve restaurant that sells gourmet melts,
salads, and beer, made with ingredients from local farms.
Using bright colors and bold repetition of
the emblem, create a brand that is easily
memorable and appeals to the young, fun,
and playful of any age in Rhode Island.
MY CONTRIBUTION
Designing the brand icon, the television
menus, paper menus, uniforms, flyers,
and to-go boxes.
Planning and developing the website and
slogan: www.sogoodumelt.com
Managing social media platforms and creating
content and strategies focused on facilitating
local awareness and long-term growth.
Consistency with their brand, their service,
and their food are the key ingredients of
UMelt’s success so far.
• Within 4 months of opening, UMelt’s
social media presence grew by over 900
• As of October 2015: 1,700 likes on
Facebook, 473 followers on Twitter, and
894 followers on Instagram
• Umelt has Won 5 yearly readers-choice
awards since 2013, including best
sandwich shop and best lunch in
Providence
4.4 / 5 on Foodler, with 415 ratings
4.8 / 5 on Facebook with 69 reviews
4 / 5 on Yelp with 67 reviews
So good, UMELT
SOLUTION RESULTS
Aug 2012 - Sept 2015

4. 4 | PORTFOLIO
129 Weybossett st. Providence, Rhode Island

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Brand
Development
So good, UMELT

6. 6 | PORTFOLIO
To-Go Box

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Personal
Experiment
“G.O.A.T.” is a popular acronym in sports and music meaning “Greatest of
all Time.” In November of 2013, I re-purposed an open source Elo rating
system in an attempt to settle an old and often heated internet debate:
Who is the G.O.A.T in Hip-Hop?
Upon entering the website, two hip-hop artists
are randomly displayed with one ever present
question above them: “Who’s better?”
Depending on which artist the user clicks, a
win or a loss is recorded for each artist and
saved to a PHP database allowing two new
artists enter the arena.
• Homepage
• Top 10
• Bottom 10
Unfortunately, at the time, I was not aware of the
limitations of my ‘unlimited’ hosting plan. Once
traffic began going to the website, every 75,000
votes would cause the site to be temporarily
unavailable until the beginning of the next hour.
Data from 14 hours on November 5th, 2013:
• 367,008 page-views
• 13,593 users
• 24.48 pages / session
• 1:55 average session duration
• .07% Bounce rate.
Objective
WHO’S THE G.O.A.T?
METHOD RESULTS
November 5, 2013

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Analytic Report

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WORDPRESS
FEBRUARY 2014
SRAHEC
Delores Walters is the Associate Director of the Southern Rhode Island Area Health
Education Center. I was hired by her as an intern to design and update the SRAHEC’s
page on the URI website in accordance to the University of Rhode Island’s Wordpress
branding guidelines.

10. 10 | PORTFOLIO
6 initial concepts • 3 revisions
July 2014
OVERVIEW
Design
MEANIE PANINI
After discovering my portfolio on Reddit, John
Di Dio contacted me to design a logo for his
new business venture: A Massachusetts based
food truck that specializes in panini sandwiches;
“Meanie Panini”
BUSINESS CARDS

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December 2014
OVERVIEW
Web
“8-BIT PSYCHEDELIC”
View Project
I was hired in December of 2014 to design and
build a unique web experience for a future
marketing plan set to roll out in Q2 of 2016.
The client asked for a website that felt retro,
but not outdated and blended the aesthetics
of 1960s psychedelic artwork with the style of
8-bit video games from the early 90s.
I have been given limited permision by my
client to host a stripped version of the website
for my portfolio.

12. 12 | PORTFOLIO
OVERVIEW
SAILORS FOR THE SEA
”Sailors for the Sea is a leading conservation organization that engages, educates,
inspires and activates the sailing and boating community toward healing the ocean.”
In February, I was contracted to update InDesign documents for the Sailors for the
Sea KELP program and to design and create 100 ocean “factoids” under their new
branding guideleines.
February 2015
Design

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REBRANDING
IndieWhip is a small video production company based in Providence, Rhode Island and
founded by my former roommate, Brian Bruzzi.
After graduating from URI, I spent several months working as an independent contractor
in their office working on client projects, leading the repositioning of their brand in the
marketplace, and defining their new brand persona as a full service agency. The first step
was to create more mature branding.
INDIEWHIP
OVERVIEW
LOGO DESIGN
January - March 2015
The original logo was created in 2013.
For the re-design, we wanted to step away from
the friendly round edges and create a semi-
ambiguous symbol that felt stronger, more
rigid, and more sophisticated.

14. 14 | PORTFOLIO
After the branding was solidified, It was necessary to generate “buzz” within the community
that the IndieWhip was no longer the same. To do so, I created a 2-week campaign known
as “destroy IndieWhip;” where users would create and submit videos of the old IndieWhip
being “destroyed” in creative ways.
* Click the image to see a compilation of submissions
DESTROY INDIEWHIP
OVERVIEW

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SHOPIFY
BEDJET
January 2015
In the last week of January, Mark Aramili, founder of the BedJet needed to overhaul
his website before his product made an appearance on NBC’s Sharktank the following
Tuesday. We had dozens of phone calls and emails going back and fourth into the late
hours of the night up until his TV debut. Impressed by my dedication and commitment,
I was rewarded with a bonus BedJet ( which - is really an amazing product. )

16. 16 | PORTFOLIO
May 2015
Web
@SHOTBYRHYS
www.ShotbyRhys.com*
*Some photos are mildly N.S.F.W
Rhys is a photographer, video-editor, and
creative in Rhode Island. For his birthday, he
asked for a webpage that housed all of his
social media links; allowing creative freedom
for whatever I wanted to do.
So... for the website, I brought his demo reel*
into After Effects and sped up the timing. Next,
using image-sequencing in Photoshop, I broke
the short video into 225 images.
Each scroll made by the user results in the
site’s background image changing with a
different frame / photo from his video.
OVERVIEW

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Digital
Advertising
Grow brand awareness, gather leads, and increase product sales for a
fast growing consumer service product that creates a custom quilt out of
customers’ recycled t-shirts.
Hand made in the good ol’ US of A...
Increase email capture and purchase
transactions using Facebook Ads, Google
Adwords & Klaviyo by creating and managing
a 2-month digital ad campaign; built around a
single cohesive promotion and landing page.
My contribution to this team of 3 included
designing & developing a custom landing
page; co-designing the ad images, ad copy,
and email templates; and planning and
managing the funnel between the display
ads and conversion transaction.
Compared to the previous two months, the
company saw:
• Overall revenue increase by 53.9% (191k)
• Homepage bounce rate decrease by 51.01%
• Pages / Session increase by 52.3% (2.96)
• Email conversions grow by 246.2% (56.8k)
• Average order increase by 99% ($49.9)
• Organic search conversions increase by
66.9% (44k)
Client Objective
SOLUTION RESULTS
May 2015 - July 2015

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Analytic Report

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June 2015
OVERVIEW
Design
“SQUAB” RUGBY DESIGN
Stephen Gillissie hired me to make a design for his rugby team based off the sketch below.

20. 20 | PORTFOLIO
Audissey is a Japanese based music-file start-up and
was the first place winner of the 2015’s Start-up Weekend
Tokyo Music competition in March. The service is aiming
to be the “iTunes of audio tutorials and project files.”
Our goal was to create several concepts that would fit
the brand persona and give visual context to the name
of the company, Audissey.
“Audio + Odyssey = Audissey”
• Ricky Peratta - Creative Partner
• Gee Diago - Client
August 2015
OVERVIEW
TEAM
Brand / Logo
Development
AUDISSEY

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6 initial concepts • 3 revisions

22. 22 | PORTFOLIO
10 initial concepts • 2 revisions
Ben Wood, owner of the Fire & Water restaurant
group, contacted me at the end of July to see if I had
interest in re-branding his oldest location, Caliente.
Caliente is a Mexican quick-serve restaurant founded
in 2005 and located at the University of Rhode Island.
The only requirement asked for the new logo was to
creatively include the Rhode Island recognized “flame”
icon that Caliente had been using since ‘05.
• Ricky Peratta - Creative Partner
OVERVIEW
TEAM
Rebranding
August 2015
CALIENTE

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24. 24 | PORTFOLIO
OVERVIEW
Social Media
REDDIT
There’s a lot of talk on the subject of Reddit and its hatred for marketers.
However, the truth is that it’s not much different than marketing on any other
social platform.
Follow the simple formula: Be authentic + know your audience.

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26. 26 | PORTFOLIO
Web
Alessio Cappelletti was in need of a
website that pitched his upcoming
indie film, Para La Paz, and the advan-
tages it has to offer potential investors.
With the help of the incredible work done by
his concept artist, Josh Fee, this was a quick
an enoyable project.
www.ParaLaPazfilm.com
PARA LA PAZ
( FOR PEACE... )
OVERVIEW
September 2015

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28. 28 | PORTFOLIO
February - April 2014
OVERVIEW
Social Media
TWITTER
Ever since I signed up in 07, I’ve had a love/hate relationship with Twitter. At the
beginning of 2014, I made a new account to test a few growth theories I had. Some
panned out fairly well, but after a couple of months I stopped pursuing the elusive
retweet; it took the fun out of having a Twitter account.

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