Vouch

Finding the visual language

The first real test was a major product section on the website: around 75 images for a video platform, without repeating the same visual idea over and over. One piece from that period still runs today: a full-screen masonry of videos, all playing simultaneously, cascading in. It started as an experiment updating a LinkedIn header. It became a key hero visual because it did exactly what Vouch needed to do: show what the product captures, and put people first.

Animation became one of our most reliable tools, combining video and motion graphics to show the product in action. For major feature releases I planned, produced and sometimes scored these myself. That practice has since grown to around 300 videos and motion pieces.

The first rebrand

In late 2023, the brand needed to evolve. After speaking with agencies, we decided to do it in-house. The existing palette (pinks, reds, crimsons) felt heavy and no longer right. We had underused secondary teals, and I started exploring those. When our CEO came in with a photo of three Uniqlo caps (off-white, light teal, a slightly darker teal), that became the palette.

I extrapolated a system from those three colours and carried it through Figma to the website. The new palette gave me considerably more room: we introduced an expanding circular motif, updated the animation style, and things started to feel like us. That identity served us well for eighteen months.

The 2025 rebrand

When a major product extension created the opportunity for another look at the brand, I set myself a specific brief: create something more defensible. Companies in this space had converged on similar visual identities. Some had borrowed whole layouts from our website. We shared a typeface with half the internet. I wanted to move away from that, and away from the generic feel of tech.

After some verbal brainstorming I landed on something I described internally as a “surf flow state.” We’re a Sydney company. Nobody in the office really surfs. It felt slightly on the nose, but it was the most accurate shorthand for what I was after: something coastal, spacious, decaffeinated, with that quality of flow Vouch is designed to give you in your work.

The key material decision was texture. I applied film grain overlays throughout, not for nostalgia, but to give digital surfaces some tangibility. I referenced specific film stocks to adjust image levels, giving the photography a sense of familiarity you can feel without being able to name. With no time or budget for a shoot, I used AI image generation in Visual Electric, with a set of references and prompts I’d developed and trusted. Around 90% of what came out was more than fit for purpose, and all of it got the grain treatment.

I produced a full set of vector icons and shapes designed to look hand-drawn rather than geometric. A wave motif emerged that we ended up using everywhere. The whole thing launched alongside the new module. Again, entirely in-house.

The website

Since 2022 I’ve designed, or redesigned, almost every page of the Vouch site: more than 80 pages and sections across the homepage, feature pages, case study templates and campaign landing pages. Each rebrand meant a full pass in Figma, working out how the new identity would function at scale before it touched a browser.

The build sat with a Webflow development agency I worked closely with throughout. My job was to design with enough specificity that they weren’t making decisions that should have been mine: component structure, spacing logic, responsive behaviour. Over time that relationship sharpened how I design for the medium, and structured handoffs in a way that made the gap between design and build as small as possible.

More recently, I’ve connected Claude directly to Webflow through its MCP server, so I can design, build and manage the site myself. In five weeks I took 80+ pages and 400+ blog posts through a full overhaul: around 58,000 links audited, alt text written for 1,100+ images, and the blog redesigned for reading, with bigger type and shorter lines. Along the way I built new pages, animated CTAs across 300+ posts, and scripts that audit the site for links, SEO and accessibility. It’s also cut what Vouch spends on site maintenance.

Every job starts with me. Before Claude built anything, I pointed it at Lumos, the Webflow framework we build on, and at our style guide, our components and our design system, so it worked within them. That’s what gave me the confidence to work this way. From there I set the direction and give it the context and references it needs, in writing, out loud or in pictures.

It builds on a staging site, then I review it, refine it and publish it myself. Every change is logged with a backup and a way back, bulk edits get a dry run first, and nothing goes live until it’s been checked on desktop and mobile. It’s a very fast pair of hands, and I’m still the one deciding where they go.

Working with AI

Alongside the rebrand work, I built an internal Brand Hub: a centralised, interactive guidelines resource with a conversational AI interface I named Flow. Rather than a static PDF that nobody opens, it’s a tool anyone in the team can actually talk to. Ask it a question about the brand, have it review a piece of copy, or get it to find the right asset. I built it with AI, working conversationally in Claude Code while supplying all of the direction, design decisions and brand assets myself. It now holds ten guideline sections and around 300 brand assets.

Building it meant understanding these tools not just as a user, but as someone shaping the output, and that has paid off well beyond the hub. I now build my own creative tools most weeks, more than ten so far, including a Remotion pipeline for brand motion, custom Figma plugins and a carousel builder. AI is part of my video and motion workflow too, and has made motion graphics, one of my core skills, around three times faster.

I use it to speed up early ideation, take on repetitive execution and generate photography where a shoot isn’t an option. I treat these tools like any good collaborator, knowing when to trust them and when to push back. The goal doesn’t change: better work, made faster, without losing the thinking that makes it worth anything.

Beyond the brand

Some of the most useful work sat outside the brand system. I designed Vouch’s investor and sales decks, turning sensitive company data into clear, credible stories. I found and rolled out Supademo, an interactive demo platform the team has since filled with more than 50 demos. It’s now a key lead-capture tool for sales and is used heavily by Customer Success. In 2025 I created a standalone identity for Signal, a spin-off product, in three weeks (see the Signal case study).

Content has been a constant thread. In 2023 I designed the Voice of Customer Guide, a standalone microsite of case studies and expert research. More recently, I used AI to rebuild two lead-generation assets as interactive web experiences: the Lean Employer Brand Field Guide, previously a gated PDF, and the Employer Brand Times (EB Times), a newspaper I designed and printed for a live event, now available to people who weren’t in the room.

I also brought significant video and audio production experience into the role, stepping in on editorial decisions, sound and AI-assisted editing. I managed external content creators producing for Vouch’s channels, including a six-month campaign that produced around six product launch videos. Writing briefs tight enough to protect the brand without flattening a creator’s voice is a different skill from internal briefs, and one I’ve developed deliberately.

The shape of the role

At an early-stage startup, the creative lead holds the standard across everything, not just the flagship launches. That means staying close enough to the brand to move quickly without losing coherence, and making it possible for others to contribute ideas and see them realised well.