>APR 2025 - OCT 2025
(Peaktew)
Shaping a startup identity that sparks connection
\branding,
social media
↳ ROLE
Brand Designer
↳ TEAM
1 Design lead
2 Designers
↳ Audience
Post-Secondary students and Young adults
↳ TIMELINE
7 months
↳ TOOLS
Photoshop
after effects
figma
Overview
PeakTew is an award-winning startup that helps young people improve their relationship with their phones and the people around them.
As the sole brand designer on this fast-paced team, I’ve led and guided visuals across multiple touchpoints, including our website and social media.
Working closely with the social, business, and web departments, I made our branding more consistent, engaging, and memorable.
outcomes
My main focus was building a stronger and more consistent identity that our audience could remember and trust.
I designed weekly carousels, reels, TikToks, and LinkedIn visuals, plus several major UI components for both our mobile app and website.
iMPACT
Doubled Instagram engagement by redirecting content strategy to align with audience, purpose, and goals.
The system continues to be used by the team after my involvement ended, reflecting its lasting impact on the brand's visual direction.
Deliverables
Tiktok
Challenges
We didn’t have a unified identity along our touchpoints. Our content wasn’t reaching the right audiences.
I identified weak points in our strategy and made small but impactful changes to garner a larger audience while still keeping familiar to the audience we’ve already grown.
I noticed that who we were wasn’t easy to understand and given that there is no working product yet, it would be hard to trust as a new potential user.
Balancing input from multiple stakeholders with different creative visions.
My challenge was to synthesize conflicting stakeholder ideas into one cohesive visual language: something fresh, lasting, and engaging enough to gain traction while still feeling familiar.
I researched similar apps and our audience’s interests, looking for nostalgic cues like film grain, warm colours, and textures reminiscent of analogue media.
Since our team was spread out across the world, getting authentic visuals was tricky. I leaned into this by curating stock photography that felt genuine and nostalgic.
Left image is the past branding and social media feed.
Right image is the social media feed after my changes.
LinkedIn posts were underperforming because they relied on generic illustrations.
After researching high-performing posts, I shifted our approach toward bold typographic statements and lifestyle photography.
The new templates featured strong messages, clean layouts, and images that reflected our values of collaboration, connection, and accountability. This positioned us more strongly in front of potential partners.
Created relatable, approachable content meant to lower the barrier for new users.
Designed and written weekly social media content that highlighted stories, tips, and insights. Our posts felt more natural and trustworthy.