4700 word labor of love. I've seen all the patterns and heard every story about in-house brand/creative studio teams. This is my vision for where brand teams can go (and why I joined @tryramp). Brand systems that behave like jazz. Brand as software.

A quick vacation pause to say holy moly I’m excited about this launch.

Introducing @RampLabs brand identity. When I first heard about our labs team, what they do, but more importantly their philosophy for how they approach their work, I knew we had to brand them. Their work deserves a cohesive system and tools to scale their mission and endeavors. When I met @shevchenkoaalex, I really admired his dedication to the mission of the labs team. I could feel that he had an important obligation to the industry and to the craft of research. We extended our core brand system for this one and had a ton of fun making it. Another fun five week sprint with @markweaver Nicholas Ano, and Roan Collum. Thank you to the @RampLabs for the partnership and trusting us to cook. labs.ramp.com/

This is an epic role, with just a monstar team of builders that care deeply about craft, systems, and quality. Brand x DS are hand in hand in all things product, brand, experience, web, etc. Let's build!

I've made some major updates to 10m.co. - Accurate and complex search - More filters to find what you need - 22 total institutions and museums - Over 130,000 public domain artwork - Major mobile update I built The Tenth Muse (10M) because museum websites are painful to view art. Public domain is scattered everywhere and often lost. Whenever I start a project or think about branding, I don't go to the typical channels. I go to the library, into the margins of books. I visit The Met to clean my soul of all the slop. That's why I built 10M. There are gems in these archives, a jumping off point for your next big idea or branding project. Maybe, just maybe, you can differentiate yourself. I built something for designers to find better creative inspiration, and also for people who want to scroll through something, I don't know, not designed to make you feel miserable and alone. Please enjoy! (sound on!) 10m.co.

I am hiring a Principal Brand Designer to join the brand team at @tryramp.  This is a special role that will be influencing and building upon many of our upcoming flagship projects and building up the new brand system we shipped in July. I’ve been here 9 months. This is my third growth stage startup. I’ve shipped more in 9 months than probably 2-3 years combined. In the 9 months I’ve joined, the brand team has done.. - New homepage - New brand system in 4 weeks - Stack branding and launch - We work on every T1 project across the org - Brand as software philosophy and internal agents that can generate 10/10 assets for teams - Careers page (ramp.com/careers) - Accounts Receivable launch - OnRamp, our customer-facing event - Branding the new offices - Brand architecture and the narrative that will shape the future of Ramp - ramp.design/ - And we’re shipping more major projects A designer may work on one T1 project a year, and the rest of their time is bending the knee to CMOs and non-creatives who talk down to designers. Not here and not with my team. For example, my designer Cristina Keane, in three months joining, shipped Router.com with the team, pushed the brand system into web and various T2/T3 pages, and is cooking up a major launch. We don’t do endless reviews. I trust all my designers to make decisions. You will never have to present to a group of stakeholders to get “alignment.” You know how we landed that brand refresh in 4 weeks? Because @diegozaks and I stay close. I sent Supercuts. He adds comments. He trusts. We cook. We ship. We make it better and better, we aren't precious about perfection. What I’m looking for is someone that is like dark matter. Someone who operates like this warps their surroundings, pulling in everything into their orbit. You run through walls because of conviction and clarity, and people run after you, because they want to work with you.  I need someone who is “not playing with AI” but fundamentally breaking their brain every week to embody this new world and this alien technology. I look for character and portfolio: who are you and what have you shipped? Above all, where are you going? I genuinely don't care you’re cracked on Twitter; if anything that’s an anti-signal.  Here’s the official job description: jobs.ashbyhq.com/ramp/72c3ef… Apply slowly and thoughtfully. The core ethos of my team is “Execution over everything.” Good ideas win at Ramp. Not 12 meetings about a document and a bunch of non-makers telling designers what to do. You’re going to join the one of the few brand teams in tech that will pave the way for how teams like us work and behave. I get emails every week from other leaders at top companies asking how we do what we do.  If you email my personal (or worse, text me), I'm sorry but I will block you. There's just too much spam. I am working with @CHammond4855 on this directly.

Japan trip in 10 days. If you could teleport there tomorrow, what is one thing you would do/eat/see/visit again?

How it feels right now at @tryramp (The speed of jazz music, by Francine Winham) ramp.com/careers

This is gonna be so fun.

For those who know ball, who wants to rebuild this? I saw they did do a remake, but it ain't the same as it was back in the day.

“An idea can turn to dust or magic depending on the talent that rubs against it.” — Bill Bernbach