VISUAL IDENTITY / EXPERIENCE / MOTION GRAPHICS

Cass Information Systems

As Senior Designer at SmartBug Media, the agency managing marketing for the Cass account, I led brand identity and design-system work alongside the motion graphics and campaign production that ran on it week to week. I authored the brand roadmap that set the direction for the rebuild, then built and shipped the system itself: a 64-page visual identity guideline, a token-based Figma library, and the onboarding materials to get the wider Cass and SmartBug teams using it consistently.

Situation

Cass Information Systems automates accounts-payable, freight audit, and expense management for large enterprises — a company built on process and precision whose brand hadn't kept pace with that positioning.

The existing guidelines were dated: a legacy Trebuchet type system, an icon set with no shared construction logic, and no living source of truth. Just a static PDF that drifted further from production every quarter. Marketing and sales collateral had outgrown what the brand book could support, and every new designer on the account was re-deriving rules that should have been documented once.

I proposed a rebuild in a brand roadmap deck, diagnosing exactly where the existing system broke down and recommending the specific direction — palette, typography, iconography, and photography — the new guidelines should take.

Roadmap → Shipped System

Color

Recommended shifting to Azure/Midnight primaries with green relocated to an accent role. Shipped as Ledger Navy and Statement Blue primaries with Approved Green as a secondary accent.

Typography

Recommended retiring the legacy Trebuchet system. Shipped Nunito Sans for headers and CTAs with Aptos for body copy.

Iconography

Recommended a clean, stroke-based icon library. Shipped a custom icon system built on a documented 10px construction grid.

Photography

Recommended expanding direction to cover the business's full range of verticals. Shipped three photography pillars — Corporate, Facilities, Transportation.

Format

Recommended evaluating a digital-first, living-document platform over a static PDF. Shipped as a token-based Figma library alongside the traditional guideline PDF.

Every recommendation in the roadmap shipped in the final guidelines, largely as proposed:

System At a Glance

64

Pages in the shipped guideline

10

Core color tokens, each with a tint ramp

3

Photography pillars

System

The shipped guidelines run to 64 pages and cover far more than logo and color — full corporate stationery, drinkware and apparel, and a documented color-usage discipline (roughly two parts white space to one part color) illustrated against a mock report layout, so the ratio reads as a rule to apply, not just a palette to admire.

Ledger Navy
#0A1E47
Statement Blue
#1A3E84
Midnight Gray
#414658
Approved Green
#2E5A3D
Optimization Gold
#F5AF10
Complex Coral
#F24A32

Custom Email Signature

Developed a 64-page brand and Figma system to establish consistent visual identity across all visual brand assets, plus a custom email signature builder for Cass's four business units — enabling self-service signature creation per department with cross-client rendering support (Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo, Zoho, Hostinger, and more).

Rollout

Roadmap

Diagnoses & propose

Authored the brand roadmap: audited the existing system and recommended the direction the rebuild would take.

Build

Strategy into system

Developed the full guideline system in Figma as a token-based design system, not a static layout.

Ship

Guidelines & onboarding

Shipped the 64-page Cass Visual Identity Guidelines alongside a companion walkthrough guide.

Adopt

Into production

Exported the system as a Figma design-token library and carried it into ongoing motion and campaign work.

“Thank you for helping us turn strategy into something people could see, understand, and connect with. The creativity, professionalism, and collaborative spirit you brought to every conversation made a real difference.”

Ann Webb Camp, Marketing, Enterprise & Facilities Platforms, Cass Information Systems

Campaign Performance

Once the system shipped, SmartBug's marketing team & creative put it to work across the account's demand-generation program. The figures below are from the team's Q2 2026 quarterly business review — agency-level account reporting, not a measure of this design engagement specifically, but the real-world environment the brand system had to perform in.

Pillar content

The Outsourcing Expense Management Guide — the quarter's core content asset, targeted at financial decision-makers and private equity — drove 546 sessions, 125 influenced contacts, and 11 form submissions on its pillar page.

Case Study

The Last Mile Case Study campaign generated 535 influenced contacts through email and social promotion, sent to 301 contacts at a 9.09% average open rate.

Search & AI Visability

New content ranked #1 for "Facilities expense management," "Freight audit management," "Utility bill management," and "Waste invoice management."

Social

A 39.6% QoQ increase in publishing cadence drove a 223.6% increase in clicks and a 52.3% increase in interactions on LinkedIn.

Full funnel

37,695 visits moved through the funnel to 376 MQLs, 384 SQLs, 200 opportunities, and 5 closed customers in the 2nd quarter.

Social Media

Promotional Videos

Explainer Video

Gartner Booth

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