Creative Smart Girl · 2016–2019
A brand built around creative community.
As Creative Smart Girl grew from a recurring Twitter chat into a platform with editorial content, a shop, a podcast, and a private community, each new experience needed to feel like part of the same brand.
- Design direction
- Brand identity and website design
- Outcome
- A connected set of brand, web, commerce, editorial, and community materials that supported the platform as its offerings evolved.
- Delivery status
- Archived work · delivered assets and redesign explorations, 2016–2019
- Key constraint
- Keep the brand recognizable across changing platforms, formats, and recurring production needs.
- Team
- Narsha Njoya — creative direction, brand and digital design, Nia Phillip — founder, editorial direction and content, Charisma — collaboration on the 2.0 mood board and brand exploration
My role
What I owned.
I designed the visual identity and website, produced recurring campaign and email assets, supported the shop launch, and extended the brand into editorial downloads, podcast promotion, and community onboarding. For the later 2.0 refresh, I directed the design process and collaborated with Charisma on brand exploration. Nia led the content, programming, and business.
Brand identity
One identity, many ways to show up.
My work with Creative Smart Girl began in 2016. I developed a visual language around expressive lettering, soft gradients, warm metallic textures, and a brighter accent palette. The identity needed to work as a website masthead, a social graphic, a download cover, and a mark on merchandise.
Logo variations gave the brand flexibility without losing its character. The same visual cues carried into recurring campaigns and new offerings as the platform grew.
Website + editorial
Give the community a home beyond the conversation.
I designed the website and editorial presentation, including image-led homepage slides, community entry points, and supporting page updates. The homepage paired Nia’s photography and messaging with the brand’s type and color system.
In the early experience, I connected Mailchimp signup pages, Squarespace confirmation and download pages, and Leadpages landing pages. Later updates included the About page and links between the blog, community, and shop.
Community campaigns
Make each conversation recognizable.
Recurring Twitter chats needed promotion that could be refreshed for different subjects and panels. I designed coordinated Instagram and Twitter graphics, question cards, and supporting email assets.
Examples include the November 2016 Building Leverage conversation and the May 2017 Financing Your Business chat. The production work extended to collaboration announcements and later campaign deliveries, including RestBlackWomen in 2019.
Email + digital resources
Carry the experience into the inbox.
I designed email templates and signup journeys for the community, Twitter-chat announcements, and shop communications. The work included Mailchimp templates such as A Note from Nia and the Style Starter Kit sequence.
The Style Starter Kit paired a welcome email and six daily lessons with a designed workbook. I translated Nia’s content into an editorial layout with a clear hierarchy, image treatments, and exercises readers could work through.
Creative Smart Shop
Turn brand language into products.
For the 2017 Creative Smart Shop launch, I designed and prepared merchandise artwork, product mockups, and storefront content. T-shirts and mugs turned the community’s language into tangible pieces.
The engagement also included Shopify product setup, launch and sale email assets, postcard artwork, and coordination around print files and fulfillment. Product descriptions and merchandising direction came from Nia.
Creative Smart Talk
Design for listening—and for sharing.
I extended the identity into Creative Smart Talk episode artwork and promotional motion assets. The Episode 2 graphic shown here accompanied What Is Emotional Labor?, with me as the featured guest.
The June 2018 delivery for Episode 4, The State of Social Media with Chasity Cooper, included separate Twitter and feed video files and was marked complete by the client. The archive also records an Episode 3 file handoff and an Episode 5 assignment for Asha Boston’s conversation on personal branding.
Creative Smart Girl 2.0
Plan the next version of the platform.
In 2018–2019, the work expanded into a refreshed brand and WordPress redesign. I directed the design and review process, collaborated with Charisma on mood-board and logo exploration, and developed homepage concepts with animated hero treatments.
The website flow mapped connections between the blog, podcast, shop, email-delivered resources, and a proposed membership experience. Do The Work Kits, member onboarding, and resource areas appear in this planning artifact; the diagram describes the intended experience rather than confirming that every feature launched.
The Support Suite
Help people feel at home in the community.
The Support Suite extended Creative Smart Girl into a private Slack community. I delivered its logo variations and a designed onboarding PDF in February 2019, alongside the branded community landing-page experience.
The guide covered joining Slack, setting up a profile, notifications, channels, search, messaging, and frequently asked questions. Clear steps and familiar brand elements helped carry the tone of the website into a new tool.
Media + partnerships
Package the platform for prospective partners.
I designed and delivered the 2018 media kit and rate sheet. The kit brought together the platform’s mission, website presentation, recurring Twitter chat, and channel information in a consistent editorial system.
The work made the broader Creative Smart Girl offering easier to present in one place, with the same visual language used across the audience-facing experience.
Related work
A continuing partnership with the founder.
As Nia’s business evolved, our work continued into her personal brand and service website in 2019–2020: brand direction, a Showit website with a WordPress blog, service-page design, email and social templates, and a Journey to Self guidebook.
Explore the related Nia Phillip — Brand & Service Website project: View related project ↗
Across Creative Smart Girl, the through-line was continuity: applying a recognizable design language to the places where people discovered the brand, joined the conversation, bought a product, or became part of the community.