While with First Republic, I developed and implemented brand visuals and messaging across all marketing asset types, collaborating in fast-paced, cross-functional partnership with creative leads, stakeholders, copywriters, quality assurance, compliance, legal, and project management—some art direction of teams and individuals.

Completed 550 projects from 2018-2022: Design guidelines and templates, proprietary typefaces, digital and out-of-home advertising campaigns, digital content, social media, infographics, white papers and one-sheets, newsletters, direct mail, email, packaging, conferences, and retail installations.

Digital Advertising and Social Media

As part of my function with First Republic, I was responsible for the design and animation of a large portion of the content on the various social media platforms, retail digital signage, and digital advertising.

Infographic Evolution

I was asked to iterate on one of First Republic's primary infographics, to bring it into alignment with evolved brand guidelines. Original artwork (shown bottom left) progresses to right to show my thinking.

Proprietary Typefaces

As part of a brand guidelines refresh for the bank, proprietary typefaces were developed in correspondence with type house Dalton Maag. The goal was to create ownable typefaces optimized for digital finance, while being appropriate across all media types. My function within this process was to give feedback and guidance, within a team of creative directors and VPs, to Dalton Maag over about seven months' time in weekly or semiweekly Zoom meetings. The process was mapped out and scheduled beforehand, but the creative process was largely fluid, governed by consensus, and open to individual interpretation, with often wide differences of opinion. In the beginning stages, I described at length what I thought the type should look like based on my familiarity with the brand, the peculiarities I had experienced with the existing typefaces, supported by an array of inferences, opinions, ideas, and so forth. This was met with vocal support and many of the ideas endured or appeared in the final typefaces. The design and feedback process, which was of course supported by the entire team and the expertise of the typographers, varied from theoretical to technical, historical, brand-related, and so forth. The result was a balanced and contemporary sans serif optimized for finance and digital applications, and an expressive serif typeface with characteristics unique to First Republic, in both static and variable formats.

Business Materials

In developing materials, I was responsible for interpreting business ask, content, and brand guidelines into on-brand assets with the end user in mind.

The ask for this specific example was to develop an infographic template explaining the hierarchy and functions of wealth managers, which could be personalized to a specific client's needs using a automated digital platform called Seismic. The precedent given as guidance was a tiered pyramid of labeled boxes connected by a system of arrows signifying the various relationships between services and wealth managers.

Upon reflection and experimentation, I found the asked-for infographic solution to be both overly complicated and too visual, and not in line with existing First Republic collateral and branding. Knowing this, I asked more questions of the stakeholder and decided to propose this flyer — alongside many infographic solutions — that simply stated the relevant services and contact information, while following with First Republic's brand guidelines. In the end, this proposed solution was gladly approved by the creative leads and stakeholders.

Below is the end product and excerpts from the brand guidelines that the design was conforming to:

Brand Awareness Campaigns

This campaign generated a 10% brand awareness lift in New York, with 470MM impressions in 2021–2022. The ads were featured on an array of platforms around Hudson Yards in New York: static and animated newsstands, bus shelters, sidewalk digital displays, and digital displays in Grand Central Station and Chelsea Piers. The campaign's original design was developed by Moving Brands, and I made several iterations of the designs to allow for larger messaging and motion gradients, while adapting the boilerplate to the array of applications and platforms, refreshing with content on a regular basis in tandem with the in-house creative processes and timelines. Ultimately, I would complete many dozens of deliverables at each quarterly or semiannual refresh, in large-format print sizes, and static and motion digital formats.

Wealth Management Newsletter

This was a template developed to port a legacy wealth management newsletter into an updated magazine format. Working with a senior art director, this look and feel for cover and interior spreads was established. Additionally, I did the production on the first few issues of the magazine before it was outsourced to a vendor.

Direct Mail for the Ultra-High-Net-Worth

This was a pilot project in which I developed a regional direct mail template for ultra-high-net-worth prospects. Working with a senior art director, copywriter, and illustrator, we landed on this design featuring custom blind embossed and full color regional illustrations to anchor the piece to place. The project proved to be a success and the template rolled out to additional regions.

Design Guidelines and Templates

One of my first projects with First Republic was to develop a design guideline and template documents for the many one sheets produced both in-house and by vendors, using the brand expression as it existed at the time. Shown here are a few elements from that document, based on explorations done with the creative lead. The result increased both efficiency and consistency across assets and designers, while also providing a building block for later guidelines.