Creative Direction

A creative vision isn’t enough — you have to hook up the Frankenstein wires and bring it to life. If it’s a big project, that might take a whole team: a bunch of brilliant minds (who might or might not be people-people) all working in harmony. I love leading these teams!

Whether the creative strategy is mine or someone else’s; it’s just copy, or copy + design, or copy + design + video + interactives, or copy + design + UI/UX + AI prompts + game rubrics + live events + TV programming… if you need a leader to step in and coordinate and get it all… back of the net?… I’ll Ted Lasso the heck outta that.

(I love soccer, and also Roy Kent, leave me alone).

Also, get in touch for samples!

Brand Voice

The right language makes or breaks a brand. From individual projects to the flavor of copy across all assets and channels, I help companies find and maintain a voice that matches their brand personality, and achieves their communication goals. Projects include a new mission, vision, values, and language style guide for a global bioplastics company.

Please get in touch for samples.

Marketing Copy

End-to-end strategy, matching voice and tone, writing for all platforms, leading your in-house creative team, helping clients see the light, meeting aggressive deadlines, navigating weird feedback, working with mountains of background materials, conducting good research… yes please!

A Cannes Award-winning video about the Morton Salt Girl’s 100th birthday.

Skillshare’s onboarding experience.

A book of personal stories from USAID’s partners: The Strawberry King (an exerpt).

An ebook for Bank of America and Equifax.

An infographic on the future of pharmacy for AmerisourceBergen.

An explainer for Cisco’s Mobility IQ.

A video for LinkedIn about why and how people change jobs.

Instructional Writing

The instructional writing genre tends to require a solid understanding of UI/UX, an ability to write to online course templates, and a second sense for how interactive functionality serves storytelling. This is both writing and product development. Projects include a 80-module, interactive sexual harassment training for a global healthcare brand.

Please get in touch for samples.

Taglines

Taglines need to do a lot of work, quickly. They have to embody a brand, explain what the company does, and evoke just the right feel, all while being catchy and memorable. Sometimes they come in a flash. Other times they take all the creative muscle I’ve got. I live for the tagline challenge!

Kia Motors
Form, meet function. Style, meet road.
This tagline was for the Kia Sedona, a luxury family vehicle focused on practicality and beauty. The target demographic really wants a performance vehicle but, they have a family dog.

Interpark
We saved your spot.
This parking garage company created an app for booking parking spots for events in downtown Chicago. They wanted their tagline to communicate the app’s function while feeling nice, friendly, and accessible, in line with their brand voice.

More Belief
Get the picture.
This graphic recording company creates live drawings for corporate events, but also packages digital images for marketing. They wanted a tagline that alluded to the benefits of the work for elevating ideas, while communicating what the company delivers.

Content Strategy

My approach to strategy is academic: meticulous research, many sources, careful insights, and peer review. I excel at translating insight into measurable content and concepts that convert.

Please get in touch for samples.

A typical strategic engagement looks like this:

  1. A meeting of the minds to understand goals, challenges, and past work.

  2. A content audit and review of the existing strategic portfolio.

  3. A period of deep research. This typically includes many 1:1 interviews resulting in a report of findings and insights (often with multiple review rounds).

  4. Ideation. Depending on project goals, this may result in recommendations for changes to existing content, ideas for new content, or a full editorial calendar.

  5. In many cases, I also help create the content I recommend. I often serve as Creative Director for the content team.

And just for fun, here’s a little foray into science reporting:
How Do You Use Bacteria to Save Bats? Very Carefully.