Founding designer at Avenue One, building the full design ecosystem from the ground up, brand identity, design systems, and scalable workflows, as the company rapidly expanded across markets and teams. Balanced immediate execution with long-term systems thinking, advocating for design decisions and staying ahead of emerging tools to scale output.
the challenge
Building from Ground Up
Joined as the first in-house designer, inheriting minimal and inconsistent branding from freelance contributors. With no established design foundation and the organization growing fast with new products, new markets, new stakeholders, design struggled to keep pace as a team of one.
THE APPROACH
Governance Before Growth
Established design governance through progressive iteration, from color definition to brand guide to shared component library to AI-integrated workflows. Balanced immediate business needs with long-term systems thinking, consistently advocating for design consistency to non-design stakeholders while evaluating emerging tools to scale output without scaling headcount.
THE SOlution
A System That Scales
Defined and documented core visual language — color, typography, and iconography. Then built a cross-platform component library adopted across product, marketing, and sales. Developed AI-assisted production workflows to accelerate quality and consistency at scale, maintaining design coherence through multiple organizational pivots and product evolutions.
THE IMPACT
Design as Infrastructure
Established design as a strategic function from ground up, unifying internal and external brand experiences, reducing inconsistency across markets through shared systems, and enabling faster delivery for a growing cross-functional team.
