Essential elements
Hydration for the lineup
Sunscreen, wax, electrolytes.
Built for dawn patrol, long sessions and everything after.
Grab a stickPaddle in
Case StoryDesign leadershipLos Angeles
Five wellness brands, twelve designers and one system, so the team could spend its time on craft. I led design at Scale Media, then stepped in as Interim Creative Director.
The short version
Scale Media builds consumer wellness brands, from supplements to hydration. I joined as Design Director while it was growing fast: new brands, new launches and a design team spread across the US and Latin America. The job was to make five brands look like five brands, and twelve designers work like one team.
- 5
- Brands, each with its own Brand Book and Design System in Figma.
- 12
- Designers across the US and Latin America, plus external partners.
- 5,000+
- Assets in Brandfolder, tagged, tracked and easy to find.
- 100%
- Design team retention in 2022.
- 80%
- Up to 80% less weekly packaging work once ESHA Genesis came in.
- ENGAGE '22
- Invited to speak in Seattle on building resilient content operations.
01 · The team
An onboarding hub that became the standard
We were truly scaling: more brands, more launches and a design team that grew to twelve across the US and Latin America. At one point four designers with completely different skill sets started at once, all remotely, and they needed to work together seamlessly from day one.
So I wrote everything down. The Design Knowledge Hub, in Notion, held our key tools, a glossary of terms and teams, an onboarding checklist, role breakdowns, a brand directory and a team directory where everyone had a profile, their 30-60-90 goals and an ape.
It was built to shorten the distance between a new designer's first day and their first real assignment. It became the company standard, and people kept using it years into the job.
What it taught me: people feel empowered when they can find answers without interrupting anyone. Writing it all down lowers the pressure to memorize, which matters for neurodiverse teammates. And with the basics on the page, first conversations can be about people and projects instead of logistics.
Inside the hub
Drag to explore →
Two of the training walkthroughs from inside the hub.
“I can not stress enough that all teams and companies should have this.”
“As a newbie, you don't want to bother anyone with random questions, and the Knowledge Hub is perfect for that: it's a place where you know you'll get all the answers.”
“The team made me feel comfortable from the beginning. It wasn't hard to feel part of the company right away.”
“The Onboarding Checklist is really helpful too. The act of checking things off helped to make me feel like I'm on the right track.”
02 · The systems
Five brands, one source of truth
Each brand had to look and sound like itself on packaging, Amazon, its own site and social. We codified the Brand Books and Design Systems behind all five in Figma, plus the standards for photography, video and 3D renders, so any designer could pick up any brand on any channel and get it right.
We also ran brand workshops with the team at Purple Bunny to sharpen each brand's point of view.
Consistency doesn't mean sameness. Everything just has to trace back to the same source of truth.
That's what lets twelve designers build for five brands without a style meeting for every banner. Pick a brand below and watch one product card change its whole personality.
Same card, same structure. Each brand's system decides the rest: type, colour, buttons and voice.
From the Design Systems
Drag to explore →
03 · Content ops
Fewer file hunts, more craft
Five brands make a lot of assets. I deployed Brandfolder across more than 5,000 of them. Its CDN made our pages faster, AI tagging made files easy to find, and usage analytics showed what was actually being used, so we planned shoots around real needs and spent less on vendors.
On packaging, we brought in ESHA Genesis for the nutrition-label work, cutting up to 80% of the weekly effort and giving the team back more than 1,000 hours a year.
It worked well enough that Brandfolder invited me to speak at Smartsheet ENGAGE '22 in Seattle with Skye Bacus, on “Building Resilient Content Operations.”
04 · The work
Launches, shoots and shelves
A system is only worth it if the work gets better. Here are a few of the launches I creative-directed in those years, from product photography to packaging.
01
Essential Elements × Koa Smith
A hydration launch fronted by pro surfer Koa Smith. The campaign had to feel like real surf culture and still read as a science-backed wellness brand, across packaging, site, Amazon and social. Shot in Hawaii by Riley Westgaard. The packs on grey are 3D renders we built in Blender.
02
Live Conscious
Clean, plant-forward supplements with a calm, earthy world to match: natural light, real ingredients and people taking a breath. That world carried into Beyond Brew and its Alice in Wonderland-themed “Rise 'n Shroom” campaign.
03
Tru Alchemy
Clean luxury skincare with a little magic in it. As Design Director I worked on the packaging directly with Futura, the Mexico City studio, and art-directed the product photography and launch collateral. Screen-printed glass, mahogany and rose gold.
As featured on The Dieline “Tru Alchemy's Packaging Exudes The Essence Of A Magical Luxury” · April 2021 ↗
“Not only is she remarkably intelligent, consistently showcasing a deep understanding of design nuances, but she also possesses an adeptness in transforming vision into the tangible.”
05 · Interim Creative Director
Diagnose first, then restructure
On top of design leadership, I served as Interim Creative Director over a 22-person video and influencer organization.
Before changing anything, I listened. The problems weren't talent: briefs were unclear, the cadence was inconsistent and there was no pre-production discipline.
So we separated video into Production and Post-Production and set up a dedicated social group. Every function got a clear owner and a repeatable process.
06 · The people
Staff to strengths
I promoted multiple team members across three years. I staff to individual strengths rather than availability. It takes longer to plan, and it produces better work and better designers.
We also made time to be a team: more than 20 team events in 2022 alone, from portrait drawing to mood boards and online games. That year, 100% of the design team stayed.
01 / 22
“She always showed great knowledge and care for any project she worked on. She also was a great listener and helped every individual on her team stay engaged and feel heard.”
Next: Vita Coco
Where I grew into my first art director role: packaging, campaigns and a Creative Library that held it all together.
