Udacity re-branded from a learning provider to a “talent transformation platform.”

Udacity’s amazing origin story identified an appetite for tech education outside of the traditional university setting and proved that dedication and hard work could deliver the skilled workforce of the future.

Udacity repositions to address the new realities of a post-pandemic digital workforce.

This video introduced Postclick as a spinoff of Instapage. To illustrate Postclick’s brand promise of “unlocking the full potential of advertising personalization,” this script focuses on how to maximize ad conversions by creating relevant, meaningful advertising using 1:1 messaging.

My first blog post for Postclick client services, a new brand spun off from Instapage. My task was to provide perspective and guidance to potential clients about Coronavirus impact on digital advertising.

I joined the Coaches Training Institute to grow the marketing team while helping to deliver both an entirely new brand identity — The Co-Active Training Institute — and a much-needed update of the 25-year-old company’s website. I created process infrastructure for content development, including brand guidelines as well as voice and tone standards where none had existed previously. I worked across all digital touchpoint, including email, video, blog, and social media marketing.

I consolidated a library of outdated collateral into a one-page overview of the new Co-Active Training Institute, which helped the marketing team reposition CTI from a coach training and certification institution to a global leadership development brand.

In partnership with Ologie, CCA's new marketing team provided branded templates and created a system for bringing the new brand voice to life.

Fall 2017 was a special edition of Glance magazine, launching a new brand identity by reimagining a beloved publication, and igniting a conversation about the future vision of a storied institution.

CCA's brand promise had previously been for internal use only. Team Glance put it front and center as a design element in and of itself. (Art Direction by Audrey Karleskind)

The creative ethos of CCA inspires easily. (Art Direction by Audrey Karleskind)

CCA's move to unify it's campus in San Francisco, more than 100 years after its founding in Oakland, is an opportunity to turn controversy into brand identity gold. (Art Direction by Audrey Karleskind)

Glance magazine is creating cultural transformation at CCA by featuring stories about brand values like sustainability. (Art Direction by Audrey Karleskind)

Glance magazine is creating cultural transformation at CCA by featuring stories about brand values like sustainability. (Art Direction by Audrey Karleskind)

Each issue of Glance, CCA's alumni magazine, is an opportunity to tell stories that reflect CCA's new brand promise of creating cultural transformation. (Art Direction by Audrey Karleskind)

Magazines are my wordsmithing wheelhouse. Directing an amazing creative team to collaborate into the uncharted territory of CCA's new brand identity took Glance magazine to the next level.

The facts and figures of CCA tell a compelling story that needed to be expressed visually at an institution teaching the graphic design of tomorrow. (Art direction by Audrey Karleskind)

This is what happens when a publisher calls asking you to tell the story you always dreamed you'd write, memorializing a San Francisco legend while promoting the charities where you volunteer. 

The photo shoot where I first crossed over from promoter to creative director after their token female was a no-show, allowing me to step into the picture and on to the event staff.

I was just the creative director for the job when Team Aftershock wanted to shake things up after 20 years by blurring gender lines.

To position this fundraising event as an escape from dystopian reality, our concept highlighted diversity in San Francisco with a dreamscape of diversity and light.

Long before the debate over gendered bathrooms took the national stage, and long before Caitlin Jenner became the media darling of trans equality, a local activist offered her opinion from the front lines of the battle to give voice to some of the other identities in the LGBT rainbow. The trans community eviscerated me in the comments when this piece trended heavily in the online version of The Advocate, the oldest and largest LGBT publication in the United States, but my local community rallied around me with support and praise, including from a friend who was at the time the general counsel for the Transgender Law Center. The journalist in me says if people are talking about my writing at all, then the piece is doing its job of sparking dialogue and debate about relevant issues.

When I left American Journalism Review magazine to move to San Francisco, my final assignment turned into a first-person account of how technology was transforming the media landscape.

Being a news editor at CNET during a landmark court case was a trial by fire during which I quickly evolved from print journalist to digital content provider.

As an online editor at The San Francisco Examiner, I was part of the city's journalism history when the newspaper (owned at the time by Hearst Corporation) bought out the San Francisco Chronicle and merged staffs.