Incentive Agency / Creative direction · Production systems
Performance creative at scale
At Incentive Agency, I grew from hands-on designer into a creative director responsible for both campaign production and regional content. I built a small internal design team and a working system for adapting performance creatives across languages, formats, and client requirements.
Creative Director | Design Lead | Graphic Designer
2023–2024
- Responsive layout rules
- Manual production system
- Hiring & specialist review
The challenge
Campaign production depended on an expensive outsourced specialist, while regional requests and content work were growing. Junior designers needed a system they could use reliably under tight deadlines.
My contribution
I hired and onboarded junior designers and a motion specialist, defined the design rules and acceptance criteria, and maintained the production process. Client-facing account work initially sat with the account manager and PPC project owner.
Let content drive the layout
Armenian headlines were a useful stress test: longer words made fixed templates and character limits unreliable. I borrowed ideas from responsive web design—minimum and maximum sizes, proportional relationships, and variables that influence surrounding elements.
The system connected type, spacing, and product placement so designers could adapt an offer across very narrow, tall, or compact placements. Regional managers also had different approval preferences, so the layouts needed room for practical adjustments.
Build a manual system people can operate
A designer took the offer text from a task and placed it into shared components, which carried the content into the format templates. They checked those layouts before handing the package to motion. The motion designer applied presets and adjusted the details where needed.
This was a manual production system. People still needed to recognize awkward combinations, incorrect information, and format-specific problems. Shared components and recurring treatments gave junior designers a workable starting point without pretending that every asset would be correct automatically.
Put acceptance checks inside the handoffs
I hired two junior designers, replaced one as the workload changed, and later brought in a motion designer. As my content responsibilities expanded, I also delegated planning and deadline tracking to a social media manager. The team structure evolved with the actual workload.
The PPC owner could not inspect every package. Acceptance criteria between specialists handled routine checks: motion reviewed incoming graphics, and graphic designers reviewed the animation. Some client revisions came from incorrectly communicated offer terms, so internal design review could not prevent every change.
A package moves between specialists
- Prepare the layoutsInsert the offer into shared components and review the format variants.
- Accept the graphicsThe motion designer checks the incoming package.
- Animate and adjustApply presets and handle exceptions manually.
- Review and deliverCheck the animated work and prepare the package.
Maintain the system under real workload
Production covered multiple regional markets and other agency clients. The exact market count varied, so the useful story is how the system handled more assets, languages, and people reviewing the work.
I kept track of capacity, holidays, promotion peaks, and changing client requirements. Task tracking, postmortems, acceptance criteria, and regular library maintenance helped keep the operation usable. It still depended on active management.
Today, I would automate more of the repeatable adaptation logic. That is a lesson from this project; the system I delivered relied on components, instructions, and specialist judgement.