FLORIDA'S TURNPIKE / FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION (Contracted through EPIC Engineering) as a Senior Designer for Brand, Communications & Digital Innovation | Oct 2016 – Jun 2021
The Challenge
Florida's Turnpike operates as one of the most heavily regulated and publicly visible divisions of the Florida Department of Transportation, serving millions of drivers across the state. Every communication, report, and design asset produced by the Finance and Planning departments was subject to strict content guidelines, compliance requirements, and state standards. The work demanded someone who could bring creative excellence to highly regulated deliverables, manage multiple large-scale projects simultaneously, and earn the trust of senior leadership in a complex government environment.
My Role
Embedded on-site as Senior Designer through Epic Engineering Consulting Group, I served as the primary creative resource for Florida's Turnpike's Finance Department while providing additional support to the Planning Department as needed. Working directly with the CFO and executive leadership, I was responsible for annual reports, consumer product packaging, digital innovation, technical drawings, and all design concepts originating from the Finance Department. My tenure spanned nearly five years and included some of the most complex and high-visibility design work of my career.
The environment was uniquely challenging. As a contractor working alongside state employees, I operated under additional scrutiny while consistently delivering work that earned recognition at the highest levels of the organization. In an annual FDOT Excellence Award ceremony that included the entire Florida Department of Transportation, not just Florida's Turnpike, I was personally recognized by the CFO for outstanding performance. It was a distinction that reflected not just the quality of the work but the trust I had built within the department.
View Full Report: http://floridasturnpike.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/CAFR_2016.pdf
View Full Report: https://floridasturnpike.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/00_Executive-Summary_web.pdf
View Full Report: https://floridasturnpike.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/0_Intro.pdf
View Full Report: https://floridasturnpike.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/01_Introduction-1.pdf
The Work
Annual Reports
Every year I simultaneously produced three major annual reports for Florida's Turnpike, each running concurrently on overlapping timelines and each subject to strict state-mandated content requirements governing what had to be included, how financial data was presented, and how the reports were structured.
The Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) was typically 100 to 150 pages and was the most creatively flexible of the three. Each year it received a completely fresh design treatment, including new color palettes, typography selections, custom chart and table designs, infographics, and photography. To ensure the reports reflected the roads they documented, I personally drove the entire Florida Turnpike annually to photograph the roads, infrastructure, and traffic for use across all three publications.
The Traffic Engineer's Annual Report was typically 220 or more pages and represented the largest single document I produced each year. It combined complex technical data, traffic analysis, maps, charts, and extensive narrative sections into a cohesive and professionally designed publication.
The Toll Operations Annual Report was typically 100 or more pages and covered the operational performance of the Turnpike's toll system, requiring the same level of design consistency and data visualization as the other two publications.
Producing all three simultaneously each year required precise project management, deep familiarity with state compliance requirements, and the ability to maintain creative quality under sustained deadline pressure.
To view full reports from samples, click one of the reports below:
SunPass Packaging
I designed the consumer product packaging for SunPass, Florida's electronic toll collection transponder. The packaging went to market and was sold statewide at Publix grocery stores, Florida welcome centers, all Florida Turnpike Service Plazas, gas stations, Walmart, and additional retail locations across the state. This was consumer-facing, retail-distributed packaging representing one of Florida's most widely recognized transportation products.
Operating Budget Request Application
One of the most significant projects of my tenure began with a simple observation. A state employee was struggling to get colleagues to follow the standard operating procedure for submitting Operating Budget Requests. The existing process relied on paper forms, created tracking difficulties, resulted in lost submissions, and made routing and approvals inconsistent and unreliable.
I proposed a solution: a fully responsive internal web application that would digitize and streamline the entire workflow. This was not a simple online form. The application included radio buttons and dynamic drop-down menus that performed calculations, intelligent routing logic that automatically determined the appropriate approval path based on the dollar amount being requested, a complete multi-level approval workflow, and a reporting feature for department leadership.
I served as the contractor in charge of the project, guiding the development team, making all creative and UX decisions, and producing all design assets for the application. The project took one year to complete. Upon launch it was adopted across all of Florida's Turnpike and it remains in active use today.
Additional Work
Beyond the primary responsibilities above, I managed Florida's Turnpike's SharePoint intranet site, provided technical traffic figure drawings for the Planning Department during high-volume periods, and produced all additional design concepts and creative assets requested by the Finance Department throughout my tenure.
Recognition
FDOT Excellence Award, Florida Department of Transportation Annual Awards Ceremony, recognized by the CFO of Florida's Turnpike for outstanding performance and contribution to the Finance Department.
The Result
Nearly five years of delivering complex, high-stakes design work within one of Florida's most regulated public agencies. Three major annual reports produced simultaneously every year. Consumer packaging distributed to millions of Floridians statewide. A digital application still used across Florida's Turnpike today. And a recognition for excellence from the CFO of one of the state's most prominent transportation authorities.