THE WORK

In 2020, I had the privilege of joining a multidisciplinary team of pioneers in emerging tech, game design, behavioral science, and product management as VP of Marketing & Story where I repositioned their offering as a white glove service offering custom digital transformation software development services for the large enterprise, including AR and VR deliverables.

Year one consisted of my leading a full brand strategy including workshopping the leadership team for key value drivers left on the table, a deep dive into the competitive set and landscape, customer persona interviews and development, mood boards with several design directions, a design brief, and ultimately the sourcing and hiring of a stellar design agency where I was creative director of four month expedited rebranding with new iconography, design language, and all new marketing materials from sales sheets to web to pitch deck.

In year two, I established a content marketing strategy that included content pillars, social campaigns and the operationalization of the marketing function of this re-startup hiring and managing an outside SEM and display agency and a growth marketing agency.

Brand Strategy

Establishing a new brand of an older entity involves respecting and mining the old while embracing a full reinvention that runs full throttle toward the future. To that end, I interviewed stakeholders, thought leaders in the space, and ideal customers on the pain points and primary needs we could fill to make them heros with their respective P&L responsibilities and digital transformation challenges. Through team  workshops, we found our brand archetype and sharpened our  customer personas. I then sourced and oversaw the creative direction of external partners in identity design, animation, and photography and wrote all copy for the new site including mission, approach, process, case studies, and bios, establishing a rich and unique brand voice. I then coached and mentored everyone from the sales teams to the CEO on the new brand language and key talking points.

BLDG25 is a now a new kind of experience design firm for the large enterprise, combining a background in exploratory and creative game design with deep roots in enterprise business management to solve tomorrow’s big business challenges.

Brand Archetype

I turned to classical archetypes to establish a clear vision of who we are and the function we serve for our clients. In our discovery process, we uncovered those archetypes to be a combination of “The Creator” and “The Explorer.” BLDG25 creates harmonious order out of human motivation, big data, and complex infrastructure – and they do so as explorers looking at the whole of each problem. They use a multi-dimensional approach and they don’t shy away from novel solutions.

On the site you can read the story – from their roots in game design to their commitment to providing immersive, intuitive experiences. I also found a way to quickly communicate their approach which combines their Game Design DNA with Behavioral Science and an understanding of both the enterprise and the best of tech to impact areas ranging from Healthcare and Financial Services to Cybersecurity, Industrials, Supply Chain Solutions and Retail. I also included screenshots in the writing section of this site.

Creative Direction

After defining a unique position, I searched high and low for the right visual design team to create an identity worthy of our commitment and vision. I owe my gratitude to the design minds at TRÜF, made up of veteran brand and identity professionals out of Los Angeles, who captured the essence of their ethos through modernistic geometric simplicity. Like the BLDG25 story itself, every detail was considered.

Logo as A Beacon

The new logo is organic, fluid, and flexible; an immersive experience in and of itself that calibrates to each viewer’s eye. It combines yin and yang and is a play of opposites: science and art, business rigor and exploratory imagination, data analytics and creative visualization, innovation and practical concerns. It’s also an abstract eye symbolizing vision, insight, and intelligence. What else do you see?

Colors

The primary color I picked is a shade of aqua that heralds the limitless possibilities of next generation technology. It’s also used on the site to categorize our healthcare and cybersecurity case studies and content.

The two tertiary colors are a warm coral for the industrial case studies, supply chain and retail, and an immersive green that represents financial services and insurance projects.

Photography

I sourced and worked with two photographers, a Raleigh-based portrait photographer named Kathy Howard and a burgeoning lifestyle photographer, named Giovanna Torrieri.