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Governing a global brand across seven studios
Framestore
Brand Governance · Brand Systems
The Challenge
Framestore's brand had to maintain its presence across seven global studios - London, New York, Mumbai, Montreal, Melbourne, Chicago and LA - while serving a relentless flow of pitches, conferences and communications. Brand work ran through one-to-one handovers and bespoke builds, which meant every request queued behind the last one.
My Role
As the only Senior Internal Brand Designer, I was the design point of sign-off for brand work across all seven studios.
The Approach
Hold the line
As the sign-off point for brand work studio-wide, I set and upheld the standard every output was measured against. Governance only works when the rules are legible, so the standards lived in documentation people could find, with worked examples they could copy.
Systemise the heaviest workload
Presentations were the biggest drain, so working with senior leadership to define requirements I built a modular presentation framework serving 10+ global conferences including In Motion and Web Summit. Deck prep dropped from a week to under a day, keeping the same quality but a fraction of the cost.
Replace handovers with self-service
A template library and documentation set removed the need for one-to-one handovers across all seven studios. Assets were built for local adaptation from the start, so each studio could flex the brand for its own market without breaking it.
Close the perception gap
Partnering with marketing, communications and recruitment, I worked on the distance between how Framestore looked to clients and how it looked to talent and external parties, bringing the employer brand up to the standard of the commercial one.
Outcome
Deck production cut from a week to under a day across a 10+ conference calendar. One coherent brand, locally adaptable and globally governed .
Why this matters
Brand governance is usually invisible until it fails. What sets true governance is standards people can actually follow, systems that make the right thing the fast thing, and a brand that scales because nobody has to queue for it.
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