Baker Tilly brand development
and stewardship
Building the standards, shared tools, and creative practices that helped a national brand stay consistent while continuing to evolve
When Baker Tilly introduced a brand evolution in 2022, our external branding agency partner provided the foundation: a retained logo with new color, typography, and graphic language. As Graphic Design Manager, I expanded those initial ideas into the full-fledged guidelines, creative infrastructure, templates, workflows, and team required to make the brand usable across the firm.
- Role
- Graphic design manager
- Scope
- Brand governanceCreative operationsProduction managementDesign team leadership
- Partners
- Creative directorCopy managerDesign teamVideo team150+ marketersFirmwide departmentsExternal vendors and agencies
- Timeline
- Fall 2022–Fall 2025
- Outcome
- A repeatable identity system supporting 400+ initial conversions600–800 production requests per quarter
The challenge
The brand identity needed to scale across the firm while remaining cohesive, recognizable, and flexible enough to support varied audiences and business needs. At the same time, Baker Tilly was centralizing creative production after marketers with Adobe access had historically designed some materials themselves. We needed to establish a clear standard, help 150+ marketers adopt a new process, and give the design team enough structure to manage high volume without making every project feel identical.
My approach
I expanded the high-level creative direction provided by the agency into a comprehensive design system that could guide every brand touchpoint across the firm. In collaboration with the Creative Director and Copy Manager, I built the governance, standards, and application rules behind a coordinated suite of resources: comprehensive visual guidelines, dedicated digital guidelines for web and product teams, brand voice guidelines, and abbreviated references for vendors and others who needed more focused direction. Together, these resources gave teams the clarity to apply the brand consistently across a wide range of channels, formats, and use cases.
To translate those standards into tools the design team could use every day, I created shared Adobe Creative Cloud libraries containing approved logos, colors, type styles, headers, footers, calls to action, firm statistics, and modular design elements. I also designed templates for flyers, brochures, reports, and long-form documents, giving designers standardized grids and repeatable components.
I built the operating processes that kept creative work organized, consistent, and accessible: internal review, production workflows, file conventions, project-tracking dashboards, and post-approval uploading to the DAM, where approved assets could be downloaded and used across the firm. Notable examples included a dedicated event request process that captured every required asset at the outset and gave marketers a set of creative concepts from which to select. The chosen direction was then carried across every touchpoint, creating a cohesive experience from pre-event marketing through the event itself. I also managed the phased, six-month rebranding of more than 400 collateral pieces, overseeing assignments, progress tracking, and quality review throughout the conversion.
Mentorship was central to how I led the graphic design team. I introduced an internal creative review process that gave me visibility into work across the team and created a consistent checkpoint for brand alignment and quality. Just as importantly, review became a space for coaching: I explained the reasoning behind feedback, helped designers strengthen their judgment and craft, and identified opportunities for each person to take on greater ownership and grow.
“She leads with confidence, provides detailed training and allows her team members to step into growth opportunities on a consistent basis.”
The outcome
The brand system gave the firm clear guidance, reusable tools, and a consistent way to request, create, review, and distribute branded work. It supported 600–800 quarterly requests while reducing stakeholder-facing errors and revisions. For the first time, project-tracking analytics provided visibility into patterns of efficiency and inefficiency across the creative process. These insights helped identify bottlenecks, investigate their root causes, implement targeted improvements, and measure their impact over time—protecting design capacity while strengthening service delivery.
Leadership in practice
- Brand stewardship and evolution
- Expanded an initial identity into a cohesive, scalable brand system that strengthened the quality, consistency, and recognition of the firm’s brand as a whole.
- Creative systems and operations
- Built an interconnected framework for requesting, creating, reviewing, managing, distributing, and measuring branded work.
- Team leadership and mentorship
- Led and developed the graphic design team by establishing clear processes and expectations, then reinforcing them through thoughtful delegation, constructive feedback, and ongoing coaching.
From strategy to execution
Visual identity and collateral system
The Visual Identity Guidelines establish the brand platform, architecture, and application standards. Selected applications demonstrate how shared grids, components, and templates created consistency while allowing the identity to adapt across the firm.
Digital experiences
The Digital Experiences Guidelines translate the identity into accessible direction for websites, applications, and digital products, including color contrast, backgrounds, interface elements, iconography, typography, and hierarchy.
Event creative from concept to experience
I developed a dedicated workflow that brought planning, creative exploration, production, and approval into one coordinated process. Once a concept was selected, it carried cohesively from pre-event promotion through the full event experience.
Creative direction and designer growth
In 2024, I worked closely with Emily Schneider to refresh the firm’s social graphics within the evolved brand. I positioned the work as a stretch project that required systems thinking beyond individual deliverables, providing creative direction and mentorship as Emily developed a flexible visual approach, template library, and clear standards for ongoing use.
Design execution: Emily Schneider
Creative direction and mentorship: Monique Brickham
If you’re building or strengthening a brand, process,
or team—I’d love to connect.
