Senior Designer & Brand Strategist

From fast-paced newsrooms to comprehensive product design, my work goes beyond surface-level design. I operate at the intersection of visual craft, environmental atmosphere, and strategic communication.

I build with intention.

Professional Work

Visual Designer

Pyramid Technologies

IBM

Three Rivers Media

Magnum Opus

A Friend of the Elves. 24"x36"

A tribute to the tale of Frodo and the One Ring, this series was born entirely from a love for Middle-earth

and its rich visual lore. These posters serve as a defining milestone in my portfolio: a reminder of the power of passion-driven design and a guiding light for the trajectory of my future work.

Inspired by the mid-century poster design scattered throughout San Francisco, I came home driven to capture that same aesthetic. Once the first poster fell into place, the creative momentum took over, and the rest of the series followed in quick succession.

I'm naturally observant, constantly archiving visual references from the world around me to see how they can be reconstructed through modern layout and typography. This set exists because I love taking a single spark of inspiration and seeing how far the string goes.

SoloBeats

Product Branding

SoloBeats is a futuristic audio concept born from a simple user challenge: complete physical independence from your phone during workouts through standalone streaming earbuds. Serving as a playground for identity design, the brand pairs a subtle integrated logo mark with a maximalist, cyberpunk-inspired color system. This project allowed me to explore end-to-end product visioning combining utility-focused hardware concepts with vibrant, boundary-pushing brand expression.

A branding one-shot for SoloBeats fictional product

Dean Nelson

Album Cover Art

Born from a chance encounter at a local venue where Dean was covering Led Zeppelin's Kashmir, this series of cover artworks is the result of a close creative collaboration. Working directly with Dean to capture his relaxed, effortlessly cool persona, I translated his musical vision into a cohesive set of release covers now live on Spotify. This project stands out as one of the most enjoyable creative partnerships in my portfolio.

Senior Designer & Brand Strategist

From fast-paced newsrooms to comprehensive product design, my work goes beyond surface-level design. I operate at the intersection of visual craft, environmental atmosphere, and strategic communication.

I build with intention.

headshot of brandon g merritt in black and white

Professional Work

Visual Designer

Pyramid Technologies

IBM

Three Rivers Media

Magnum Opus

A Friend of the Elves. 24”x36”

A tribute to the tale of Frodo and the One Ring, this series was born entirely from a love for Middle-earth and its rich visual lore. These posters serve a reminder of the power of passion-driven design.

Inspired by the mid-century poster design scattered throughout San Francisco, I came home driven to capture that same aesthetic. Once the first poster fell into place, the creative momentum took over, and the rest of the series followed in quick succession.

I’m naturally observant, constantly archiving visual references from the world around me to see how they can be reconstructed through modern layout and typography. This set exists because I love taking a single spark of inspiration and seeing how far the string goes.

SoloBeats

Product Branding

SoloBeats is a futuristic audio concept born from a simple user challenge: complete physical independence from your phone during workouts through standalone streaming earbuds. Serving as a playground for identity design, the brand pairs a subtle integrated logo mark with a maximalist, cyberpunk-inspired color system.

A one-shot brand identity for solobeats

Dean Nelson

Album Cover Art

Born from a chance encounter at a local venue where Dean covered Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir, this series of cover artworks is the result of a close creative collaboration. Working directly with Dean to capture his persona, I translated his musical vision into a cohesive set of release covers now live on Spotify.

Senior Designer & Brand Strategist

From fast-paced newsrooms to comprehensive product design, my work goes beyond surface-level design. I operate at the intersection of visual craft, environmental atmosphere, and strategic communication.

I build with intention.

Magnum Opus

A Friend of the Elves. 24"x36"

A tribute to the tale of Frodo and the One Ring, this series was born entirely from a love for Middle-earth

and its rich visual lore. These posters serve as a defining milestone in my portfolio: a reminder of the power of passion-driven design and a guiding light for the trajectory of my future work.

Inspired by the mid-century poster design scattered throughout San Francisco, I came home driven to capture that same aesthetic. Once the first poster fell into place, the creative momentum took over, and the rest of the series followed in quick succession.

I'm naturally observant, constantly archiving visual references from the world around me to see how they can be reconstructed through modern layout and typography. This set exists because I love taking a single spark of inspiration and seeing how far the string goes.

SoloBeats

Product Branding

SoloBeats is a futuristic audio concept born from a simple user challenge: complete physical independence from your phone during workouts through standalone streaming earbuds. Serving as a playground for identity design, the brand pairs a subtle integrated logo mark with a maximalist, cyberpunk-inspired color system. This project allowed me to explore end-to-end product visioning combining utility-focused hardware concepts with vibrant, boundary-pushing brand expression.

Dean Nelson

Album Cover Art

Born from a chance encounter at a local venue where Dean was covering Led Zeppelin's Kashmir, this series of cover artworks is the result of a close creative collaboration. Working directly with Dean to capture his relaxed, effortlessly cool persona, I translated his musical vision into a cohesive set of release covers now live on Spotify. This project stands out as one of the most enjoyable creative partnerships in my portfolio.

Pyramid Technologies

Full Page Print Ad

Reliability

For this full-page ad series at PTI, I directed and crafted the end-to-end development from initial concept to print prep. To cut through a market saturated with chaotic,

feature-heavy layouts, I explored three visual directions: bold architectural pillars, a structured banner framework reminiscent of NPS branding, and minimalist layouts

leveraging deep whitespace. By giving the hardware room to breathe, the design creates a quiet, authoritative presence on the page.

Product Design

How do you bring modern, compliant gaming to non-profit facilities like the American Legion? You build intuitive kiosk management software wrapped in a distinct brand identity.

SeBa controls everything from game selection to physical bill acceptors and thermal printouts. I spearheaded the product naming and design system, selecting SeBa (meaning "portal" or "gateway") to represent the

transition into digital gaming. I engineered the vector identity in Illustrator and built out the end-to-end kiosk UI experience in Figma across all screen states.

IBM

USAF Civil Engineers

Branded Materials

Conceptualized and designed targeted social media campaign assets for USAF Civil Engineers, honoring service members through impactful visual storytelling and brand-consistent typography.

Combined bold graphic layouts with authentic photography and custom vector elements to craft memorable recognition graphics for key observances like National Day of the Deployed.

Established a cohesive visual identity across patriotic holiday campaigns, balancing official military emblems with dynamic composition to drive digital community engagement.

Conceptualized and developed distinct identity concepts for the 2025 Emergency Management Senior Leader Summit, exploring structural geometric marks, shield badges, and crest formats.

Extended the event identity into promotional marketing collateral, designing high-impact "Save the Date" web banners and digital ads optimized for event registration and engagement.

Built cohesive visual identity systems across organizational initiatives, including clean vector logo marks and broadcast title graphics for leadership updates like the CE Enterprise Call.

Senior Visual Designer & Brand Strategist

From fast-paced newsrooms to comprehensive brand production, my work goes beyond surface-level design. I operate at the intersection of visual craft, environmental atmosphere, and strategic communication.

I build with intention.

A headshot photo in black and white of brandon g merritt the portfolio's creator

Professional Work

Visual Designer

Pyramid Technologies

IBM

Three Rivers Media

Magnum Opus

A Friend of the Elves. 24”x36”

A tribute to the tale of Frodo and the One Ring, this series was born entirely from a love for Middle-earth and its rich visual lore. These posters serve as a defining milestone in my portfolio: a reminder of the power of passion-driven design and a guiding light for the trajectory of my future work.

Inspired by the mid-century poster design scattered throughout San Francisco, I came home driven to capture that same aesthetic. Once the first poster fell into place, the creative momentum took over, and the rest of the series followed in quick succession.

I’m naturally observant, constantly archiving visual references from the world around me to see how they can be reconstructed through modern layout and typography. This set exists because I love taking a single spark of inspiration and seeing how far the string goes.

SoloBeats

Product Branding

SoloBeats is a futuristic audio concept born from a simple user challenge: complete physical independence from your phone during workouts through standalone streaming earbuds. Serving as a playground for identity design, the brand pairs a subtle integrated logo mark with a maximalist, cyberpunk-inspired color system.

A logo shot of solo beats
A wireless earbuds project poster
A one-shot brand identity for solobeats

Dean Nelson

Album Cover Art

Born from a chance encounter at a local venue where Dean covered Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir, this series of cover artworks is the result of a close creative collaboration. Working directly with Dean to capture his persona, I translated his musical vision into a cohesive set of release covers now live on Spotify.

Super Rich Kids Cover arft
The back of a vinyl for Dean Nelson
cover art for Kashmir
Paper Planes cover art
Sativa cover art