Scaling Brand and Design for a Global Digital Experience Platform
As Piano expanded from paywall software into a global, multi-product digital experience platform, I restructured its design group into a multidisciplinary internal studio and built the systems supporting continuous brand, marketing, digital, event, and client-service demand.
Piano
Design Director
2019–2024
Creative Leadership
Team & Function Building
Creative Direction
Creative Operations
Design Systems
Challenge
Piano was expanding its platform, products, markets, and global marketing footprint while design demand grew across campaigns, digital experiences, events, product communication, and client services.
Piano was evolving from paywall software toward a broader Digital Experience Platform. At the same time, product, campaign, website, content, event, and client-service needs were expanding. The inherited design group was organized around disconnected responsibilities and duplicated capabilities, making it harder to absorb continuous enterprise demand coherently.
Approach
Reshape the design function around organizational demand, direct the enterprise brand, and replace repeated one-off production with shared systems and a dependable operating model.
As Design Director, I reshaped the team, oversaw project management, introduced intake and internal client-service mechanisms, directed day-to-day operations and approvals, led the design system, and directed campaign, brand, event, space, and digital work. Piano.io was directed in collaboration with the SVP of Creative.
Outcomes
The studio moved to a more manageable production cadence, faster delivery, and more consistent output through clearer ownership, intake, and reusable design infrastructure.
During the broader company growth period, Piano repositioned toward a Digital Experience Platform and revenue increased from roughly $60M to $85M through acquisition and expansion. These are company-level context, not design-only outcomes.
This case demonstrates design leadership as organizational design: structuring people, decisions, systems, and standards so a creative function can absorb growth without fragmenting the brand or the team.
Aligned the studio around organizational needs rather than isolated specialties.
Established intake, prioritization, approval routing, and project-management mechanisms that stabilized the production cadence.
Built shared landing-page, content, registration, campaign, and client-template systems, including no-code publishing workflows.
Improved delivery speed and consistency without reducing the work to a single visual template.
Miles Courtney
Work
Information