DALLAS UNITED
2024 — Present
Client: United Way of Metropolitan Dallas
Role: Lead Art Director & Designer — Paid Media Systems
ROLE - LEAD Art Director & Designer
United Way is a global nonprofit organization dedicated to improving education, income, and health outcomes through collective, community-driven action. United Way of Metropolitan Dallas serves more than 1.7 million North Texans annually, working across education, financial stability, and health to create long-term opportunity. The Centennial Campaign marked 100 years of impact and served as both a celebration of legacy and a forward-looking fundraising initiative designed to carry momentum into United Way’s next century.
Overview
I served as Lead Art Director for United Way’s Centennial paid media campaign, owning the visual system and execution across all digital paid channels throughout the year. My role focused on creating a scalable design framework that could support sustained fundraising, clearly communicate impact, and remain cohesive across evolving quarterly priorities. I was the sole Art Director responsible for paid media design across the entire Centennial year.Scope of Work
Over the course of the Centennial year, I designed and delivered all paid media assets across four quarters, supporting evergreen fundraising as well as pillar-specific campaigns tied to education, income, and health. This included the creation of a complete, year-long paid media system that allowed United Way to continuously tell its story while adapting messaging to different moments, initiatives, and calls to action without losing consistency.Strategy & Execution
The primary challenge was clarity at scale. United Way’s work spans multiple focus areas, programs, and audiences, and paid media needed to quickly show donors where their contributions went and why they mattered. To address this, I designed a 12-unit mosaic grid system that structured content into a clear, repeatable visual language. The system allowed individual stories and impact areas to live within a consistent framework, enabling rapid production, easy iteration, and visual continuity across quarters.Design Considerations
Design decisions prioritized legibility, emotional connection, and flexibility. The mosaic system balanced human imagery, data points, and calls to action without overwhelming the viewer. The grid allowed content to be modular, ensuring that messaging could be scaled up or down depending on campaign needs while preserving hierarchy and clarity. Because the work supported donation-driven outcomes, the design intentionally avoided visual excess in favor of structure, consistency, and accessibility.Impact / Outcome
The Centennial paid media campaign supported a record-breaking year for United Way, contributing to $64 million raised through the annual campaign and helping reach more than 1.7 million people across North Texas. The mosaic system improved donor understanding by making impact more visually legible and was adopted internally beyond the Centennial effort as a reusable framework for future paid and digital communications. While visually understated, the work enabled United Way’s fundraising and awareness efforts to operate smoothly at scale during a landmark year.COLLABORATORS Art Director: Amaya Blanton
Graphic Designer: Amaya Blanton
Copywriter: Bill Cochran
Creative Principal: Brian Linder | Bill Cochran