Ray Truong

Marketing Designer | UI/UX

Specializing in blending design and development to convert business objectives into revenue-generating systems.

Ray Truong

Creative Technologist

Every client and campaign over the years has cumulatively shaped how I approach my work. My background in sales and marketing, combined with hands-on design and development experience, gives me a firsthand understanding of how attention drives customer acquisition, and how different pieces of a brand system fit together to profitably scale a company.

Designs should look good, but they also need to be functional. The projects within this site are a collection of some of my most beloved work, with each one demonstrating the results of great ideas discovering the right partner to execute.

Ray Truong

Skills

Brand
Identity

Marketing
Systems

UI
Design

Workflow
Automation

Projects

Get in touch

Great ideas deserve the right partnership

Availability

Open to full-time roles

Focus

Marketing · UI/UX

Email

contact@raytruong.com

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Portfolio

My Projects

A curated collection of some of my most beloved projects.

Luxury Listings

A custom home builder in Parker, CO sought out my professional services through a referral and presented an exciting opportunity to design branded marketing materials for their multi-million-dollar listings.

For this project, my objective wasn't solely focused on marketing the properties, because they practically sold themselves. Instead, my goal was to build a repeatable, template-based production workflow that reduced their listing turnaround time to a single day.


Quiet Luxury

The color palette grew naturally out of the logo. Navy and gold were already embedded in the brand, so the listing system just needed to honor what was there: luxurious, clean, and expensive without trying to be.

Navy #262E38
Pale Gold #BAB279
White #FFFFFF

Photography First

Each listing had an impressive amount of square footage to cover. To adequately highlight every detail, I tailor-made multiple photo-centric templates to pair with crisp, professional photography and 3D renderings.


Brochure Automation

Sterling’s brochures were previously designed one at a time in Canva, and their process involved the same tedious layout work to be repeated whenever they wanted to list new properties. This became troublesome because, unlike individual realtors, home builders often submit several properties to market at once which frequently caused operational bottlenecks for their former designers.

Bifold brochure, front
Front

Listing Brochures

One of the first things I did to improve their workflow was to create a few reusable, brand-consistent Illustrator templates for their 11x17 bi-fold brochures.

Bifold brochure, back
Back

AI Data Organization

The next step was to integrate an AI workflow with triggers to organize each property's images, listing data, and contact information into structured CSV files, which I'd use to generate print-ready brochures in InDesign within minutes rather than hours.

Bifold inside spread
Inside 11x17 bi-fold

Automated Data Merge

  1. Order submission

    Keywords within each order email trigger the automation workflow.

  2. Automated workflow

    Order summary, listing data, and image paths are organized into a CSV file for each property.

  3. InDesign merge

    The structured data is brought into InDesign and merged into the corresponding brochure templates.

  4. Proof & QA

    Brochures are manually reviewed before they're sent to production.

  5. Order complete

    Approved brochures are printed and delivered the same day the order is submitted.

Floor Plan Flyers

Floor plan sheet, front
Front
Floor plan sheet, back
Back

Property Templates

Majestic Oak brochure
Noble Pine brochure
Majestic Oak front brochure
Majestic Oak brochure variation

Real Estate Listing System

Brand
Consistency

Refined Sterling’s existing brand into a cohesive system for property listings.

Listing
Templates

Built brand-consistent templates to produce listings without rebuilding layouts.

Automated
Production

Reduced listing turnaround to a single day with an InDesign automated workflow.


Building A Brand

A common problem I've noticed among most family-owned restaurants is that they lack the marketing to showcase their delicious food to their community, while franchises with mediocre food thrive with their corporate marketing budgets.

Fortunately, social media algorithms have shifted how people discover new businesses, as potential customers have expressed their desire for unfiltered organic content over high-production campaigns. This means a well-crafted brand with genuine quality food can convert viral attention into new customers instantly.


Perfect Blank Canvas

The word "Kasata" came to mind when I envisioned a high-end sushi den. It isn't a real word, and that's precisely the point.

A blank canvas is one of the most powerful things a brand can have, because every meaning attached to "Kasata" would be built deliberately through the logo, the food, and the way the space made people feel.

Kasata restaurant interior

Dark, Bold, Deliberate

Kasata needed an identity that felt deliberate enough for a high-end sushi den without relying on the visual clichés common to restaurant branding. I built the mark around a custom script wordmark and a compact sushi-and-chopsticks symbol, then limited the system to deep red, black, and off-white so it could remain distinctive across menus, signage, and digital campaigns.

Deep Red #9E2A20
Black #0D0D0D
Off-White #FAFAF8
Identity development
Kasata logo sketch iterations
Kasata wordmark typography development
Kasata sushi-and-chopsticks symbol construction
Kasata logo variant 1
Kasata wordmark with campaign tagline
Kasata wordmark without tagline

The Menu Is The Sales Floor

For most restaurants, the menu is the only physical piece of the brand a customer interacts with before deciding to part with their money. That makes it the closest thing a restaurant has to a salesperson, so it has to sell.

Kasata menu prototype

8.5x14 Menu wireframe planning

Kasata restaurant menu

Final design


Every Roll Tells A Story

The tagline is the operating system that runs the brand. It's an engine where the food and the experiences I capture become an endless supply of content for social media and marketing.

Kasata poster design

Poster design

Kasata Facebook ad campaign mockup

Facebook ad

Bus stop ad

Public promotions

Kasata promotional banner

Internal store decor

Kasata table tent display

Call to actions

Kasata content collage

Content collage


Every Business Is A Media Company

A current website, active social media, and consistent advertising are table stakes for any restaurant, and I wanted Kasata's digital presence to match the quality of the dining experience itself.

Website

Kasata website, mobile view

Social

Kasata Sushi Den Instagram profile and post grid Kasata Sushi Den Instagram post, sashimi

Project Breakdown

01

Market Research

02

Brand Guidelines

03

Menu Development

04

Marketing Systems

05

Media Production

The Assignment

Your Garage Cave specializes in professional concrete floor coatings, and the owners wanted to transform their personal Jeep Grand Cherokee into a mobile advertisement machine.

Instead of a simple vehicle wrap with promotional words, my suggestion was to design a wrap that looked ostentatious like a racecar livery, but with their own branding instead of where sponsor logos would typically be placed.


Building The Foundation

Amber #db4200
Orange #f57c00
Yellow #FFBA00
White #FFFFFF
Dark Gray #2B2B2B

Pattern graphics

Speed line pattern, gray concept Speed line pattern, developed strokes Speed line pattern, final colorized

The pattern was initially developed using two curved lines and blending them together with Illustrator's blend tool. Then, I overlayed sets of these at different angles and sizes, and masked our color gradient to the swoosh pattern.


Jeep Grand Cherokee template

Jeep Grand Cherokee, blank vehicle template


Graphics applied

Jeep Grand Cherokee, wrap graphics applied

Make It Pop

With the foundation in place, the next step was to transform plain bullet point text phrases into bold visual graphics.

100% Polyaspartic
1 Day Garage Floors

100% Polyaspartic 1 Day Garage Floors graphic

UV Resistant

UV Resistant graphic

Low VOC
(Volatile Organic Compounds)

Low VOC graphic

4x Stronger Than Epoxy

4x Stronger Than Epoxy graphic

Company-Provided
Mascot

Company Mascot, Carl

Crafting The Liftgate

The rear liftgate was a major challenge because it had the least usable surface area, but it's also the most impactful since drivers naturally spend more time looking at the back of the vehicle in traffic than they do at the sides.


Rear Windshield

Rear windshield graphic


Trunk Liftgate

Rear liftgate graphic

Production Handoff

Once the vehicle and window graphics were finalized, the files were handed off to a professional installer to turn our vision into reality.

Driver side
Passenger side
Liftgate

Project Breakdown

01

Needs Analysis

02

Design Foundation

03

Vehicle Graphics

04

Client Approval

05

Production Handoff

Brand Makeover

Connie's Perfect Nails has been a staple family-owned nail salon in Aurora, Colorado for nearly thirty years, but the brand never evolved with them. Some brands thrive with a legacy, but for a small business like theirs, a rebrand with modern visual upgrades and a digital presence would revitalize it within the local community.

Plum #4F1632
Rose #D8A6A6
Champagne #C9A86A
Cream #FBF7F0


First Website

Connie's never had a website so they had to rely on Google Maps, word of mouth, or foot traffic for clients to discover their business. To resolve this, I designed a responsive site optimized for SEO to help new clients explore their services, understand pricing, and book appointments conveniently.

Connie's website wireframe

The Finished Site

Connie's full website

Project Breakdown

01

Needs Analysis

02

Logo Development

03

Print Collateral

04

Website Design


Make It Pop

The Director of Expansion at ZAGG needed vinyl graphics for their bare kiosks operating inside multiple high-traffic Colorado malls. They had workers in uniform, products within their glass display cases, but nothing on the exterior that communicated what the booth did or why someone should stop, despite being located in front of an Apple store.

Relying on brand recognition alone wasn't enough so the solution was to make their services visible by wrapping their booths with custom promo graphics so passing shoppers could know instantly ZAGG offers phone repair and protection services.


Brand Guidelines

Dark Gray #2A2018
Dark Red #8E140B
White #FFFFFF
Wood texture background

Desaturated wood texture

Protect Better wordmark

Corporate tagline


Booth Design

The graphics were designed to communicate their primary services across the full width of the counters. The other sides also had matching cohesive graphics so the panels did not look like an afterthought.

ZAGG 132 inch printable panel

Front panel with services, partners, and promo campaign


ZAGG 45 inch side panel

Side panel altered slightly

ZAGG wordless side panel graphics

Matching graphics for the other sides


Blueprint Mockups

High-quality blueprints were provided to me for their Park Meadows and Flat Irons Mall locations to showcase my designs. The layout of the booths differed slightly, but the overall aesthetic remained the same.

Front booth

ZAGG booth concept front view

Rear booth

ZAGG booth concept alternate view

A Whole New Aesthetic

The original bare kiosk now looks like it was intentionally built for ZAGG with the graphics wrapped edge-to-edge with no seams, it reads as a storefront instead of a fixture someone never finished.

Installed ZAGG retail counter front Installed ZAGG retail counter detail

Project Breakdown

01

Needs Assessment

02

Design Direction

03

Graphics Mockup

04

Print Production

05

Vinyl Installation

Neighborhood Superhero

I enjoy collecting posters from my favorite movies, which sparked a random idea to create a superhero movie poster for a popular neighborhood Akita.


The Bark Knight, Rises

Every movie or show has a unique title, and my inspiration came from Batman: The Dark Knight. I wanted to capture that mysterious ethos while also blending in humor with a paw in the logo.

The Bark Knight logo outline
The Bark Knight final logo
Charcoal #0D0D12
Dark Purple #6F4DC7
Off-White #F4EEF8

Creating The Background

I started with a simple city photograph for the background and began layering color gradients, applying opacity changes, and stacking graphics with various blending modes.


Starring Aki, The Akita

I didn't have a cast of dogs I could use to depict different protagonists and villains, so I settled on turning four portraits of the same dog into different characters.


Layering The Pieces

The Assignment

Every summer, St. Elias Church in Arvada, CO hosts a two-day Mediterranean Festival bringing together food, live music, hookahs, and a full roster of activities to their local middle-eastern community; with the intentions of raising funds for the church and promote the local businesses whom sponsors the event.

My role in this project was to design the complete event package: the theme, logo, promotional campaign, event signage, and every printed piece guests would see or hold across the festival grounds.

Traditional dancing at the Mediterranean Festival Festival crowd at dusk Festival guests celebrating in traditional dress


Social Media Promotion

With the logo and theme in place, I suggested to the church board to try paid advertising for the first time. I chose to lead with digital because running Meta and Google ads early would allow guests to RSVP, and provide us room for adjustments as decisions changed throughout the process.

Facebook page banner Facebook sponsored ad
32,400+ Accounts reached
2.6% Engagement rate

Spreading The Message

Over the course of several weeks, dozens of yard signs, hundreds of posters, and thousands of door hangers and mailers went out across local neighborhoods and shopping centers to promote the event.


Mediterranean Festival 12x18 poster

12x18 Poster

Mediterranean Festival yard sign

Yard sign

Door hanger back Door hanger front

Door hanger


Event Itinerary and Sponsor Promo

The festival needed a booklet to guide visitors through the weekend, and when I presented it to the board, they saw an opportunity to use the second half to feature the sponsors as a thank-you for sponsoring the event.

Festival booklet cover
Welcome page and event guide table of contents
Food and drinks menu with hookah and raffle pricing
Saturday and Sunday event schedule
Booklet sponsor spread
Blaze Smoke and Vape and Mile High sponsor ads
Booklet sponsor and event spread
Back cover with St. Elias Church logo

Signs For Everything

In addition to the festival graphics displayed around the event, I also made large bracket signs for each tournament game across both days so the organizers could write in names as the rounds progressed.

Cornhole contest tournament bracket board
Watermelon eating contest tournament bracket board
Tarneeb card game tournament bracket board
Ping pong contest tournament bracket board

Record-Breaking Event

Entry tickets were also used as raffle entries, automatically enrolling guests into the festival raffle where a special selection of goods were given to the lucky winners, and the combination of ticket sales, the raffle, and onsite revenue from food and hookah made it the highest-grossing festival in St. Elias Church history.

Raffle ticket front Raffle ticket stub
$113,770 +44% Total event revenue
3,412 +28% Attendees
100+ Raffle prizes

Project Breakdown

01

Needs Analysis

02

Event Logo

03

Marketing Campaigns

04

Event Signage

05

Charity Raffle


Outgrowing Templates

PostNet Denver is a full-service printing and shipping franchise in downtown Denver. As their former employee, I managed the marketing, design and production staff, assembled workflow automation pipelines, led creative output for paid ad campaigns, and built a custom quoting app that eliminated an expensive operational bottleneck.

PostNet, But Denver

Altering a corporate logo is not something a franchisee gets to decide, but because the store was the franchise of the year and the fastest-growing location for three straight years, corporate permitted us to expand our marketing boundaries. I led the rebrand by localizing the PostNet logo, appending 'Denver' to it to distinguish my designs from corporate's marketing, and then simplified their tagline so we'd appeal more to B2B clients.

Logo & Tagline

Original PostNet corporate logo
PostNet Denver logo
Corporate tagline
Denver tagline

Color Palette

#C8102E
#16171C
#ECB22E
#FFFFFF

Logo Variations

PostNet Denver logo on a white
PostNet Denver logo on black
PostNet Denver logo with image

Digital & Print Campaigns

Corporate supplied all franchise locations with the same national marketing templates on Canva, but I thought they were generic, ineffective, and needed to be modernized to convey our services and competitive advantage accurately to our targeted audience.

Corporate Marketing Templates

Corporate PostNet trifold, outside spread Corporate PostNet trifold, inside spread Corporate poster template

My Denver Redesigns

Denver tri-fold, outside spread

Tri-Fold Brochure

The store's one-hour turnaround on business cards created enormous shock value and often led to conversations about larger print jobs. This eventually became the catalyst for recreating the store's marketing strategy around what customers wanted most: same-day printing.

Denver tri-fold, inside spread

The Sales Funnel

In addition to printing, virtual mailboxes were used to attract business owners who needed a P.O. box address. Their frequent visits to the store naturally converted them into print customers, making this tri-fold an important sales funnel for high-margin printing.

Same-day printing poster

Same-Day Turnaround

PostNet Denver had a strong competitive advantage with its same-day turnaround, but its advertising was not communicating it clearly, which compelled me to develop a new campaign to use across digital and print platforms.

Virtual mailbox poster

Customer Acquisition

As remote work and home-based businesses grew, virtual mailboxes became essential for formal mailing addresses. With this audience in mind, I developed a targeted ad campaign that fed new customers into PostNet's existing sales pipeline, creating more opportunities for future print work and revenue.

The Quoting Problem

The store primarily quoted jobs out of Google Sheets, and complex projects involving various items were always a hassle to assemble. I was not tasked with fixing this problem, but I wanted to make my job easier and appear more professional, so I extracted the pricing algorithms out of the spreadsheets, converted them into dedicated itemized interfaces, and built a user-friendly quoting app.

Quoting tool pricing business cards
Quoting tool pricing foamcore by square foot
Quoting tool pricing a saddle-stitch booklet
Generated PostNet Denver quote

Project Breakdown

Denver
Rebrand

Marketing &
Advertising

Operations
Management

Custom
Quoting App