At ExploreLearning, I grew from the sole designer in the marketing department into Senior Designer and later Creative Director, scaling design from an individual role into a leadership position. I directed brand consistency across campaigns, video, and digital while staying highly hands-on, producing nearly half of the creative output myself and mentoring others. As brand guardian, I also led the implementation of five new websites and CMSs with an agency partner, developed branded systems for Marketo, Canva, and Adobe Express, introduced Agile-inspired workflows for campaign ideation, and created processes for media rights management and compliance.

The Challenge

The challenge was building a consistent, scalable brand identity with limited resources — while modernizing workflows, expanding into new creative channels (video/social), and supporting a wide variety of stakeholders across the company.

Key challenges included:

• Scaling design from a one-person team into a leadership role while staying hands-on
• Developing systems/templates that empowered non-designers without sacrificing quality
• Leading five CMS/website builds with an external agency under strict time allocations
• Ensuring brand compliance across media rights, stock, and internal asset use
• Creating space for new campaign ideas while streamlining execution

The Scope of Work

• Brand Guidelines & Systems: Established templates and brand processes for campaigns and cross-team use.
• Marketo Templates: Designed branded landing page templates to streamline email marketing campaigns.
• Internal Brand Platforms: Built branded structures in Canva for internal teams, later transitioning to Adobe Express for greater control and scalability.
• Campaign Creative: Directed and produced campaigns across digital, social, video, and print.
• Video Expansion: Produced and edited motion/video content in Premiere Pro and After Effects, expanding the brand into motion-first storytelling.
• CMS Leadership: Served as team lead for five website/CMS builds (corporate and product sites) with one agency partner, managing annual time budgets and determining when projects stayed in-house vs. went external.
• Legal & Rights Management: Partnered with Cambium’s legal team to establish media rights guidelines (stock, illustration, audio, video) and created a minimal DAM tracking system.
• Agile-Inspired Workflow: Learned Agile project management and developed a campaign ideation sprint processto involve marketing colleagues in generating new campaign concepts.
• Design Leadership: Produced ~45% of creative work personally while leading, mentoring, and coordinating team/agency execution.

The Outcome

• Scaled brand consistency across all channels with limited internal resources
• Successfully launched five new websites, improving efficiency and long-term sustainability of marketing workflows
• Empowered non-designers with branded templates in Canva and Adobe Express while protecting brand integrity
• Streamlined email marketing with reusable Marketo landing page templates
• Built legal/media rights systems that safeguarded the brand
• Created collaborative campaign ideation processes that generated stronger, more innovative campaigns

Reflection / Takeaways

• Learned how to scale design strategically — building systems that work across internal and external teams
• Developed operational leadership skills in agency management, compliance, and workflow design
• Proved that brand guardianship is as much about systems and processes as it is about visuals and campaigns
• Strengthened my ability to balance being a hands-on maker and a strategic leader