My parents are small business owners, so I saw firsthand how deeply the pandemic affected businesses like theirs. Even when relief programs were available, figuring out what they qualified for and then navigating the paperwork to actually receive it was another challenge entirely.
That made Innovation Refunds (IR) especially meaningful to me. We weren't just building a financial brand. We were helping business owners navigate an incredibly complicated process and access money that could genuinely change the trajectory of their businesses. I believed deeply in that mission, and getting to help shape IR as it grew from a startup into a national brand became one of the most meaningful chapters of my career. The company changed the lives of the businesses we helped, and being part of its growth changed mine, too.
From brand identity and marketing campaigns to national television, customer storytelling, digital experiences, and product, I art directed and evolved a visual system that built trust in a complex financial category while keeping the brand approachable and human.
As Innovation Refunds grew, the identity needed to feel credible enough for a financial category without becoming cold or corporate. I helped shape and evolve the visual language across typography, color, iconography, imagery, and graphic elements, creating a flexible system that could work everywhere from digital experiences and marketing to merchandise and physical brand touchpoints.
Innovation Refunds’ digital experience was more than a place to learn about the ERC. It was the front door to the entire customer journey. Across desktop and mobile, we built a flexible web experience that helped business owners understand a complicated financial program, determine their eligibility, and take the first step toward accessing the funds available to them.
I helped shape the visual direction across the website, landing pages, intake experiences, and supporting digital touchpoints, translating the IR brand into an experience that felt clear, credible, and approachable at every screen size.
With the brand system, website, and product in place, it was time to put Innovation Refunds on a much bigger stage. Emmy Award-winning actor Ty Burrell became the face of Innovation Refunds, leading a national campaign that brought the brand to small business owners across the country.
I helped lead the visual direction of the campaign from production through launch, overseeing how the IR brand came to life across every touchpoint. From sets, styling, composition, and on-screen graphics to typography, color, layouts, and final campaign assets, I worked closely across creative and production to make sure every detail felt intentional, cohesive, and unmistakably Innovation Refunds.
Spanning television, paid media, display, and digital, the campaign gave Innovation Refunds a bold, recognizable presence at a national scale, carrying the brand we had built into millions of homes, screens, and feeds across the country.
A brand only goes so far without the people behind it. We brought real small business owners and their stories to the forefront, building a growing library of testimonial films that made Innovation Refunds feel more personal, credible, and human with stories ultimately reaching audiences across broadcast television and digital.
My role extended well beyond the final creative. I helped oversee production from a brand and design perspective, making sure every detail, from environments, styling, composition, and on-set visuals and final edits feel intentional and distinctly IR. With the work appearing on television, every detail mattered. I worked closely across production and creative to ensure the brand held together at every scale, from the smallest graphic treatment to the overall visual world surrounding each story.
The result was a collection of customer stories that put real people and real businesses at the center of the brand, turning something as complicated as the Employee Retention Credit into something personal, tangible, and deeply human.
Innovation Refunds had helped thousands of small businesses navigate one of the most complicated periods they had ever faced. But the ERC was temporary. The challenges of running a small business weren't.
WIRTH was our answer to what came next.
Built to support small business owners beyond tax credits, WIRTH expanded the mission into a new kind of platform, with tools and guidance designed around the everyday realities of running and growing a business. My role centered on bringing WIRTH’s product experience to life, partnering with product, UX, research, and creative to establish a cohesive interface, scalable design system, and onboarding experience for Co-Pilot, an AI-powered business advisor.
