Narrative Design
Finding the throughline.
I worked directly with Phenom’s CEO and leadership team to turn complex ideas, product narratives, market shifts, and company strategy into stories people could actually follow. The work usually started messy. My role was to find the throughline, build the narrative around it, and give the story a visual structure strong enough to carry it.
ROLE
Narrative Strategy Lead
TIMELINE
2018-2025
TEAM
CEO · Sales · Product
SCOPE
Strategy · Storytelling · Design
CHALLENGE
Having a lot to say doesn’t mean you have a story.
Phenom had products, perspectives, proof points, market trends, customer stories, and ambitious ideas about where the industry was going.
The challenge was figuring out what actually mattered, how it all connected, and what people needed to understand first.
APPROACH
I usually started by asking a lot of questions.
I would pull apart the ideas, challenge assumptions, look for proof, and keep reorganizing the story until the pieces started pointing toward the same thing.
Once the throughline was clear, I built the narrative around it, deciding what came first, what supported it, and how design could make the logic easier to see.
CREATION
The output could be a strategic POV, executive presentation, category story, marketecture, investor narrative, or the foundation for an entire campaign.
I worked across words, structure, diagrams, analogies, and visual storytelling, often moving back and forth between strategy and design until the story felt inevitable.
The finished work looked simple. Getting it there usually wasn’t.
BRINGING PRODUCT TO LIFE
Complex product stories became easier to follow when the visual itself could show how the pieces connected, moved, and came together.
FROM PAIN TO POSSIBILITY
Starting with familiar frustrations made the future state feel more relevant, believable, and worth moving toward.
IMPACT
The strongest narratives became more than presentations.
They gave leadership a clearer way to explain where the company was going, helped teams tell the same story from different angles, and created a foundation that could carry into sales, marketing, product, events, and investor conversations.
A good throughline made the company easier to understand, both outside Phenom and inside it.
