Brand & Campaign Design Systems
Research, Insights & Human-Centered Design
Art Direction & Visual Storytelling
Creative Operations & Team Leadership
Beyond the Style Guide: Strategic Brand Evolution for Global Leaders
From rigid corporate structures to humanitarian storytelling—how I navigate the "lines" of branding to drive growth, recognition, and resonance.
Brand Strategist & Creative Director; Systems Architect; Global Design Lead
Branding is never a one-size-fits-all solution; it is a delicate balance between honoring established equity and pushing for necessary evolution. Throughout my career—spanning sports, entertainment, and billion-dollar humanitarian organizations—I have specialized in identifying the unique "pulse" of a brand to determine whether it needs strict preservation, a playful refresh, or a complete structural overhaul to meet modern demands.
My mission is to act as a bridge between high-level brand guidelines and the practical need for innovative, high-performing creative. My role involves:
The Auditor: Assessing why a brand is stagnant or "outdated" and identifying the specific levers (color, typography, iconography) that can breathe new life into it.
The Strategist: Navigating the strict "brand lines" of giants like FedEx and NCL to find the creative "give" that allows a campaign to stand out without breaking the core identity.
The Architect: Restructuring global creative workflows for organizations like the IRC, moving from fragmented, localized styles to a unified, scalable enterprise system.
1. Finding the "Give" in Strict Guidelines: Working with high-equity brands like FedEx and Norwegian Cruise Line taught me that "consistency" doesn't have to mean "sameness." By taking a literal approach to NCL’s "Live Free" campaign—breaking elements out of frames and introducing accent colors to their wave graphics—I proved that you can highlight new features (excursions and activities) while remaining firmly within a premium brand ecosystem.
2. Humanizing the "Outdated" through Color and Joy: At Save the Children, the challenge was a brand that felt clinical and heavy. By shifting the visual hierarchy—reducing the dominance of stark red and black in favor of a vibrant, playful palette and a suite of 100+ custom-illustrated vectors—we centered the "humanity" of the mission. This invited participation from high-profile partners like Jennifer Garner and made the brand feel shareable, hopeful, and modern.
3. Scaling Innovation through Camraderie and Systems: At the IRC, the hurdle wasn't a lack of talent, but a lack of unity. By leading an enterprise-wide shift to a centralized Canva ecosystem and restructuring the concept-to-approval pipeline, I transformed a fragmented global identity into a powerhouse of consistency. This turned a culture of "siloed" offices into a collaborative community where high-quality, on-brand content is produced even in the face of funding cuts.
Global Brand Unity: Successfully unified the IRC’s global creative output, ensuring that the "Innovative Nonprofit" reputation was finally matched by its visual standards across all international offices.
Increased Engagement & Shareability: The Save the Children refresh modernized the brand’s digital presence, making social media content more vibrant and enticing for celebrity influencers and high-value donors.
Strategic Campaign Evolution: For Norwegian Cruise Line, my "Live Free" direction successfully shifted the focus to excursions and activities, driving new interest through OOH designs that literally and figuratively "broke the frame."
Efficiency in Crisis: By implementing scalable templates and enterprise design tools, I empowered lean humanitarian teams to produce beautiful, strong content during emergency responses, maintaining brand integrity even under extreme pressure.
