THE CHALLENGE: Leading an Evolution

Cardinal Financial engaged Fazer, an external agency, to provide a refined brand identity as part of a leadership-driven repositioning. This introduced an adjustment period for the internal creative team, who had the expertise and experience to execute this work themselves.

As Art Director, I guided the team through this period, leading the internal activation and application of the agency’s identity across product, marketing, and operational touchpoints. The goal was to make the brand cohesive, scalable, and fully adopted internally, while aligning with leadership priorities and maintaining professionalism throughout the transition.

Project Status: The updated Cardinal logo is currently awaiting final executive approval. While the mark cannot yet be publicly shared, the surrounding brand system—including palette, typography, and visual structure—is already in active use across the organization.

Approach

This repositioning was driven by strategic insight, collaboration, and leadership during a sensitive adjustment period. While the visual identity was provided by Fazer, my role focused on helping the team embrace the agency’s work and operationalize it effectively across Cardinal’s ecosystem. Key elements of the approach included:

Guiding internal adoption, coaching the team to see the agency’s assets as a foundation we could expand and own internally
Optimizing typography by pivoting to Google Fonts to eliminate costly seat-based licensing and compatibility issues to improve company-wide consistency
Activating the tagline “Speed to Mortgage” as a narrative across video, social, email, and marketing touchpoints
Expanding color application through contrast adjustments and gradients, supporting a modern, tech-forward style to avoid accessibility issues
Enhancing visual hierarchy with streamlined iconography and layered photography to add depth, hierarchy, and emotional resonance where flat color would feel static

This approach transformed the work into strategic opportunity, allowing the internal team to gain confidence and authority while applying the agency’s identity consistently and effectively.

MY Role

As Art Director, I led both the creative execution and team guidance needed during this adjustment period.

Team mentorship, helping internal designers embrace agency-provided assets and expand them strategically
Design leadership applying the new identity to marketing, digital, and operational touchpoints
Scalable system development ensuring templates, layouts, and visual frameworks could be used reliably across teams
Video direction, including developing motion graphics, curating stock footage libraries, and creating animated logo end cards to support promotional content
Cross-functional collaboration, aligning leadership, product, marketing, and creative teams while supporting smooth internal adoption

Outcome

The repositioning successfully activated Fazer’s identity internally, while also strengthening team confidence and ownership. Key outcomes included:

Consistent application of the brand across product, marketing, and internal systems
Internal team empowerment, turning the adjustment period into ownership and capability to manage the brand going forward
Reduced complexity and licensing costs through typography and system optimizations
Clearer visual hierarchy and usability improvements across interfaces and campaigns
Enhanced alignment with leadership vision, signaling growth and forward momentum
Scalable systems to support ongoing initiatives and long-term brand consistency