CONTEXT
Hard Launch is a marketing agency based in SF that helps founders prepare for their biggest moment.
This summer, I was back home in the Bay helping startups launch alongside a small creative team. Clientele spanned agentic AI, B2B data management tooling, and consumer hardware: all with vastly different target audiences, launch scopes, and brand identities.
Working closely with not only the Hard Launch team but also the founders of these startups, I produced countless assets under tight time constraints throughout each launch cycle, bridging client vision with timely production.
Over 80% of students who begin flight training never complete it and obtain their license.
THE MISSION
As one of two designers, I helped build worlds around our clients' brands across web, socials, and events.
A launch isn't just a new website or one announcement post - each client's launch cycle required painstaking coordination to determine when, what, and how each "component" would come to life, all to culminate in one clear impression of the company.
Rather than focus on any one asset, the overarching goal was to keep the founder's vision intact across every surface, even with multiple people moving quickly in parallel, all while being cognizant of the audience we needed in our corner.
THE SYSTEM
To tackle each launch, our team worked within a flexible system that served as a reliable structural guide regardless of client scope and/or brand.
FIGURE 01
Our launch system
DEEP DIVE: TOMO
01. The brief
Tomo is a personal AI agent made to hold you accountable so that you achieve your goals. It helps you organize, plan, and stay motivated via iMessage, proactively supporting you so that you can stay focused on what you need to do.
After years in stealth, the Tomo team partnered with Hard Launch for their official launch announcement.
For more on my experience working on Tomo, check out this interview with our founder and I!
02. A message aimed for everyone lands with no one.
Tomo isn't built for one type of person - rather, it's for anyone with a goal. The challenge became about making the launch feel specific and resonant enough to those who would benefit from Tomo, even with a universal value proposition.
03. Introducing Tomoland: Tomo's world.
Rather than picking one type of user to speak to, we built Tomoland: a world where every Tomo user has a place that is unique to themselves and their goals. Everyone relates to Tomo differently, and everyone contributes to the world differently. This let the launch stay true to Tomo's actual promise: helping anyone with any goal without ever feeling like it was talking to no one in particular.
FIGURE 02
Custom Tomosapien IDs made as proof of residency
Tomo had an existing brand guide, which helped me maintain visual coherence when designing for Tomoland. In fact, some imagery in the brand guide directly lended itself to visualizing what the physical world of Tomoland looked like.
FIGURE 03
A snapshot of Tomoland's visual identity
04. Every output had to tie back to the idea of becoming a resident of Tomoland, and more importantly, joining a community.
When brainstorming launch components, we indexed on creating ways to form and maintain a community leading up to launch. The goal was to make the audience feel like they belonged, and to communicate that Tomo is meant to be hyper personal and supportive.
05. Tomo is built on optimism, support, and community - our campaign helped reach the people who live by that as well in time for launch.
After Tomo introduced itself to the world, the feedback and reception was overwhelming. It was inspiring to see how Tomo's positively improving the lives of so many people.
OTHER WORLDS
Every launch asked the same question: who is this for, and how do we get on their radar?
A quick look into some selected work for other clients from this summer:
ANDERA
To get the Bay's most talented engineers in Andera's corner, we hosted a Geoguessr Olympics event so they could show off their skills.
FIGURES 04-06
Collateral for the Andera's Geoguessr Olympics event!
GHOST
As a hardware company, we wanted Ghost's brand to evoke excitement and optimism surrounding technology reminiscient of the 1960s and 70s.
FIGURE 07
Early brand identity moodboards and explorations for Ghost
TAKEAWAYS
What I learned at Hard Launch
Wear different hats
Agency work was new territory for me: I was used to working on the product itself, but at Hard Launch, I was shaping something I didn't fully control. Navigating scope as an outside team, where the brand and product weren't fully in my hands, made me more comfortable with strategy and balancing founder vision with feasibility.
Storytelling is essential
Beyond just being pretty, the graphics that people actually remembered were ones that made them feel like they belonged to something bigger than themselves. A launch can be visually consistent and still feel hollow if there's no story or takeaway.
