17 years of Design, Brand Strategy,
Leadership & Creative Direction
Brand, advertising, Website, user experience, trade show, catalog, Event Planning, Photography, Interiors & more.
For Brick & Mortar retail, B2B, B2C, e-commerce, Service & Tech.
In-house & Agency.
Hi, I’m Cassel, a Helsinki-based creative professional. After 16 years I have worn many hats in the industry and this wide range of experience makes me adaptable to new and changing environments. With an open demeanor and empathetic soul, I know how to motivate others, lead projects, and foster the right amount of creativity for the most impact.
For me, graphic design is more science than art. The only thing I love more than being creative is being strategic. I also think clever, clean, and unique design will always perform better than the status quo.
If you are looking for a no-BS designer to lead your company or team to a better, more productive, and profitable future. Please reach out!
Severalnines - Brand strategy Art style & Design
I currently serve Severalnines as the Brand and Creative Leader. Since I started in April 2023 our team has created a long-term brand strategy that established previously undefined, differentiators, target audiences, competitor landscape, and more. Further clarifying our “Zag” and refining our visual identity to align with our ambitious strategy that involves segment creation.
This change is a comprehensive and deliberate shift in persona, that sets us apart from the competition in the DBaaS market.
Hu-Main - Brand
strategy Art style & guide
Hu-Main is a well-being brand that needed direction. Our sessions led to a more relevant name a graphic style that targets their demographic. More info to come once Hu-main launches.
Aiven - Brand
Art Style inception & evolution
Aiven’s art style had been previously undefined before I started. The 3 most prominent needs were distinction, use of stock assets, and “simplexity”. Crabhaus was born, to convey complex, tech, and numerous sub-brands with ease and consistency. Later “simplexity” was replaced with simplicity as company needs and speed scaled. However, a strong, fun, and clever spirit remains. You can find more examples and also the evolution of this style on the Aiven blog today. This style was launched with a comprehensive guide with a shape library, rules, and concept guidelines to aid in speedy, and easy applications to every need.
In addition to defining the art style, I facilitated 3 separate brand research initiatives that helped define the current and future brand, while engaging reluctant stakeholders that emerged as decision-makers.
Guidelines and behind-the-scenes PDF’s confidentially available by request.
Aiven - Guides & templates
Excerpts from the mentioned style guide and showing it’s evolution over time. Colors, concepts elements and shapes all became more limited as this style was optimized for speed. Additionally, I was tasked with maintaining all other documentation and templates such as the brand guide, google slides template, company-wide asset library, and more.
PDF versions of these guides are available upon request.
Aiven - UX & PM
Improving ways of working for our creative staff at Aiven was my passion. The two areas I worked on this the most were design templates and request templates.
With request/project templates in Asana, we naturally guided our colleagues to provide the necessary information in a comprehensive, but easy-to-use form. This significantly reduced the amount of info searching by designers and writers caused by incomplete briefs.
With the auto layout feature in Figma, I was able to produce web page and page section templates for our team for fast and consistent promotional landing pages that were taken out of our previous WYSIWYG tool and brought onto our native website.
Uptime - Brand & UX
Uptime was a unique open-source conference intended to be a yearly event that nearly stands alone apart from Aiven. The idea was a summer camp for members of the open-source community. With lots of speakers and an intimate atmosphere, I built the campfire logo that we used.
The website was designed very rapidly by using the section templates I previously developed for our content team (the project outlined in the previous section). I was able to set and forget this project by creating asset templates so that when more content was created over time, any designer could fulfill that request.
The first years’ event theme was space camp, so we collaborated with Tapaus on the visuals and swag for the first ever Uptime conference.
Camos - Brand & running Agency
Starting my own agency was an incredible journey into responsibility as well as creativity. Being responsible for staff as well as clients was enlightening to the pressures executives have at larger companies. In addition to running a small company, I also had full control of a brand!
I took inspiration from all the agencies I knew by heart that were named after the starting members, but put a twist on it. Camos was created from the first letters of both my names, as a play on the Finnish work kaamos, meaning polar night. This foundation allowed me to create a brand story inspired by Finland, nature, and the northern lights. Our brand was fun, dramatic, quirky, and professional. The work to follow was mostly done at Camos, but the most notable work done at this time was my personal and professional growth.
Brand book available by request. Work done at Camos can be found in the following sections.
Svago - Brand, Website & All Media
Svago was a kind of recliner that put your body into a Zero-gravity position that offered extreme comfort and health benefits. Zero-gravity seating has been on the market for several decades and was dominated by one brand. Svago was a challenger brand, promising specialty, craftsmanship, better pricing, and a sleek functional website for customized chairs.
The brand and company operated for four years with its creators and then sold “very profitably” as a successful specialty furniture company and brand. Svago.com exists but they have made some changes to the brand. I can not confirm, but I believe Svago’s competitor who we were challenging purchased them.
Riderflex - Brand & Website
Riderflex is an interesting case. They are a recruiting agency that works with both companies and individuals. Their website and brand had to be both approachable and professional while having clear funnels, and intersection points for both their B2B and B2C clients.
Not only did I have a lot of authority on this project, but I learned quite a bit about SEO and SEM for this client. When you ask your client if they have someone working on their SEO, and they ask “What’s that” you have to step up. Learning myself and eventually hiring consultants was a huge growth experience while also being a pleasure to see my client thrive. Riderflex.com still uses much of the brand and site foundation that I created for them in 2017.
X-Chair - Brand & website
Another company I helped build from the ground up. X-Chair was challenging the ergonomic office chair market. X-Chair challenged companies like Herman Miller and Steelcase who are giants in the office furniture industry. During the pandemic, when millions were working from home, X-Chair saw a surge in business and further established itself as a trusted B2C premium office chair brand.
Xchair.com still uses most of the foundation I helped them build with their website and brand. The company sold for a reported 75 Million.
PDF’s available upon request
The rest is history
This section has samples from Miscellaneous other clients and former employers. 15 years ago I started in designing primarily in catalog design, mixed with email design, and eventually web design. My designs have been published in the New York Times, Time Magazine, The Atlantic, Sky Mall, The Washington Post, and more.
So much has changed, but the fundamentals of design, marketing, and brand have all stayed the same.
