Scale
3,000+ assets delivered.
2–3 major campaigns running simultaneously.
14–15 reusable templates.
6 designers managed.
20+ trained over time.
The challenge
Demand was outpacing the system.
When I came onto the account, the scaffolding wasn't there. Templates were inconsistent or missing. Workfront was a tangle. Designers were being handed vague briefs and expected to reverse-engineer the brand on every asset. QA was reactive, not systematic. And the campaign load kept climbing.
Two or three major campaigns ran simultaneously, alongside recurring monthly sail promotions — spanning print, digital, email, social, presentations, event signage, and video. The volume was real. The infrastructure wasn't.
Something had to be built.
The system
Not a redesign. A rebuild.
The first move wasn't aesthetic. It was structural. Before any work could scale, the process needed to be defined — brief to delivery, every handoff clear, every role understood.
Production pipeline — I established a repeatable workflow: client call or written brief → creative translation → designer assignment → production → QA → client proofing via Workfront → revisions → delivery. Weekly standups kept the team aligned. Loom-based async direction replaced ambiguous back-and-forth. Assignment logic ensured the right designer picked up the right asset.
The pipeline above shows the full flow. Every asset — across all channels — runs through it.
Template ecosystem
Architecture before aesthetics.
Fourteen to fifteen production-ready templates, built to cover every recurring asset type across the account.
Travel advisor flyers. Email headers and full emails. Brochures. Presentation decks. Social ads. Event signage. Digital displays. Thumbnail formats. Countertop assets.
Each template was built not just to look right, but to be used right — with clear layers, locked brand elements, editable zones clearly signaled, and export settings baked in. They weren't style guides. They were tools.
The result: designers spent less time making decisions and more time executing. Consistency stopped being aspirational and became structural.
QA discipline
Precision is the product.
At this scale and at this brand tier, a wrong disclaimer or a misplaced map is a client relationship problem. QA wasn't a final check — it was a system.
The checklist covered: offer hierarchy and pricing accuracy, disclaimer language, map validation, typography and spacing, export settings, file naming conventions, and image quality. I trained senior designers to support QA review, distributing the function across the team rather than bottlenecking it. AI-assisted typo-proofing added a second pass on copy-heavy assets.
Everything gets reviewed. Every time.
Team
A system is only as strong as the people running it.
The team scaled from two designers to six over the engagement. Twenty or more creatives trained in total. Retention improved — because structured, well-supported work keeps people.
Onboarding new designers followed a two-week ramp-up structure: documentation board, naming and export rules, tool training, paired work with a senior designer, and QA review before independent assignment. The goal was to get a new team member production-ready without slowing the account down.
People stayed because the environment was clear. Work was scoped, feedback was structured, and growth had a path.
Workflow innovation
The right tool for the job.
Partway through the engagement, I shifted portions of production into Canva — intentionally, and strategically.
Not as a cost-saving measure. As a friction-reduction move. Canva's browser-based interface allowed Seabourn's internal team to view, comment, and request minor revisions without requiring a design file handoff. I trained their team directly on the platform, compressing the revision loop and giving the client more ownership over small updates.
The production system didn't get simpler. It got smarter about where complexity was actually needed.
I'm also building toward the next evolution: a workflow where structured campaign inputs generate draft assets — a first pass by AI, refined by the team. Early stage, honestly framed, but already in motion.
Impact
The work moved the business.
Monthly campaign performance grew from approximately $8M to $14–15M over the course of the engagement.
The client expanded the relationship — more teams, more stakeholders, broader scope. What started as a defined account became a long-term operational partnership with guaranteed budget allocation.
That kind of trust isn't earned by individual assets. It's earned by building something reliable enough that the client stops worrying about execution and starts thinking about what's next.
The visible work is the campaigns. The real work is the system that makes 3,000 campaigns possible without chaos.
Building that system — the templates, the QA discipline, the training infrastructure, the workflow tools, the team — is what this engagement has been about. Not designing assets. Running a creative operation.
That distinction matters. Especially when the brand on the line is Seabourn.
