Building an Internal Creative Studio
Starbucks · Operations Excellence
Creative Leadership · Team Development · Creative Operations · Brand Communications
As Creative Manager for Operations Excellence, I transformed a small design team into an internal creative studio supporting partner-facing communications across Starbucks. I led a team of four designers, established creative direction and operational systems, and helped shift the team from a production resource to a strategic creative partner.
THE OPPORTUNITY
Starbucks Operations relied on creative to communicate everything from barista development and training to leadership initiatives. But without a dedicated creative function within Operations, requests were often treated as individual production needs rather than opportunities to build a cohesive communication experience.
MY ROLE
CREATIVE LEADER
Led the creative function within Operations Excellence.
TEAM LEADER
Managed and developed a team of 4 designers.
CREATIVE STRATEGIST
Established a more strategic approach to partner-facing communications.
THE TRANSFORMATION
BEFORE
Production support > Individual requests > One-off deliverables
AFTER
Creative partnership > Strategic communication > Internal creative studio > Scalable systems
ONE TEAM.
MANY AUDIENCES.
Baristas
Store Managers
District Managers
Regional Leaders
Operations Leadership
ART DIRECTOR
Directed visual expression across instructional, leadership, and operational communications.
SYSTEM BUILDER
Created processes and frameworks that allowed the team to operate as an internal creative studio.
Operational Initiatives
During my time at Starbucks, my team was responsible for designing the systems, content, branding and visuals for large scale brand initiatives including:
Back to Starbucks - Brand Marketing Campaign
Green Apron Service - New Customer Service Model
Starbucks Standards (re-brand of all Partner Instructional Materials and re-writing guidelines)
Dress Code - new uniform, simplified
Role of the DM - new training model
*Most of these projects are confidential and internal to Starbucks Corporate and cannot be visually represented in my portfolio.
