Earnest

Role
Art Director / Lead Designer
Year
2024

During my tenure at Earnest, I had the chance to play a pivotal role in elevating the brand’s visual identity, marketing presence, and design systems to drive engagement and conversion across multiple channels. From rebranding efforts to product design system expansions, I worked cross-functionally with marketing, product, and growth teams to build scalable, high-impact design solutions.

Impact

• Strengthened cross-functional collaboration between product, marketing, and growth teams.

• Increased efficiency and consistency in design delivery through a structured component library and design system updates.

• Drove higher engagement and conversion rates through targeted social, email, and direct mail campaigns.

• Enhanced internal communication and alignment through an improved intranet experience.

Key Contributions:

Nucleus Design System: Collaborated closely with the Lead Product Designer and Growth Engineers to expand and refine Earnest’s Nucleus design system—streamlining component consistency and improving design-to-development handoff.

Brand Guidelines: Developed and refined the brand creative MVP and guidelines—ensuring consistent application across all channels and stakeholder teams.

Brand Videos: Produced brand videos that communicated Earnest’s value proposition effectively, increasing engagement and reinforcing brand positioning.

Conference Booth Design: Designed a branded conference booth that elevated Earnest’s presence at industry events, creating a cohesive and visually compelling experience.

Key Contributions:

Figma Component Library: Spearheaded the design and oversight of Earnest’s expanded website Figma component library, enhancing scalability and consistency across the product and marketing ecosystem.

Iconography & Illustration: Designed and expanded Earnest’s iconography and illustration libraries, creating a cohesive visual language across digital and physical touchpoints.

• Blog Redesign: Concepted and designed the blog experience on the Earnest website from the ground up, focusing on improved readability, visual hierarchy, and content discoverability. Leveraged the Nucleus design system to ensure consistency across components, while introducing flexible, scalable templates that balanced brand storytelling with SEO and accessibility best practices.

Other Key Contributions:

Conference Booth Design: Designed a branded conference booth that elevated Earnest’s presence at industry events, creating a cohesive and visually compelling experience.

Intranet (Happeo) Design: Led the design of Earnest’s internal Happeo platform, improving usability and internal communication efficiency.

Paid Social & Email Campaigns: Designed high-converting paid social campaigns and email templates for both Earnest and Navient Refi, driving increased engagement and conversion.

Direct Mail Campaigns: Created and tested scalable direct mail templates, ensuring visual alignment with the broader brand strategy.

Tools & Skills:

Figma, Adobe Creative Suite, Motion Tools

Design Systems, Iconography, Illustration

Email & Social Campaigns, Direct Mail

Brand Strategy, Visual Craft, System Thinking

This role showcased my ability to lead large-scale design initiatives, drive alignment across teams, and deliver creative solutions that directly impacted business outcomes.