I joined UT Health Austin at its inception as the sole designer and photographer, responsible for establishing a visual identity for a brand-new academic clinical practice. Over the next seven years, I built and led the organization’s creative function—defining the brand system, governing its use, and scaling it alongside the growth of the clinical enterprise.

As the organization expanded from three departments to more than sixty clinics and specialties, my role evolved from hands-on execution to Creative Director, leading a team of designers and a photographer/videographer. Throughout this period, I maintained ownership of brand strategy, governance, and creative direction, partnering closely with institutional leadership, clinicians, and communications stakeholders to ensure clarity, trust, and consistency at scale.

UT Health Austin launched as a new academic clinical practice with a unique challenge: it needed to leverage the credibility of the University of Texas while clearly establishing itself as a fully realized, patient-focused healthcare provider—not a student-run or training-only environment.

From the outset, the brand had to navigate a complex landscape of perceptions and relationships. It needed to distinguish itself from the university at large, align thoughtfully with the medical school, and coexist alongside hospital partners—while still presenting a clear, trustworthy identity to patients.

Compounding this challenge, the organization was growing rapidly. What began with a small number of departments would soon expand into dozens of clinics and specialties, each with distinct needs, audiences, and operational realities. A purely visual identity would not be sufficient; the brand needed a durable system—one that could scale, adapt, and remain credible over time in a regulated, high-stakes clinical environment.

Designing a brand for UT Health Austin required navigating a layered institutional environment with real reputational and operational stakes. As a clinical practice rooted in an academic setting, the brand needed to align with the University of Texas while remaining clearly distinct from it—particularly in patient-facing contexts where trust, clarity, and credibility are paramount.

Additional considerations included the relationship between the clinical practice and the medical school, as well as coordination with hospital partners, each with their own brand equities, standards, and expectations. Brand decisions had to function across clinical, educational, and philanthropic contexts while complying with healthcare regulations and maintaining consistency in high-volume, real-world use.

These realities meant the brand could not rely on static assets or rigid rules. It required a system that balanced institutional alignment with operational flexibility, allowing the organization to grow without fragmenting its identity.

From the outset, I defined how UT Health Austin would visually and verbally relate to the University of Texas brand—establishing clear guardrails around color, typography, logo usage, and tone to leverage institutional equity without collapsing into it. The goal was to signal academic credibility while clearly positioning UT Health Austin as a modern, patient-centered healthcare provider.

I designed the brand architecture to scale from the beginning, anticipating growth across clinics, specialties, and service lines. Core elements were tightly controlled to protect recognition and trust, while secondary components were intentionally flexible to support diverse clinical needs and evolving use cases.

This approach allowed the brand to expand from a small number of departments into a large, multi-specialty clinical enterprise without losing cohesion. Brand decisions were evaluated against a consistent set of principles, ensuring that new applications strengthened the system rather than diluting it over time.

I personally established the brand standards, templates, and review processes that governed how UT Health Austin presented itself across all touchpoints. These were not theoretical guidelines, but practical tools designed for daily use across a rapidly growing organization.

The system included clear rules around identity usage, typography, color, layout, and tone, supported by templates that enabled teams to work efficiently without compromising brand integrity. I also defined review and intake processes to manage volume, set expectations, and maintain consistency as creative demand increased.

As the organization scaled, these guardrails allowed the brand to remain cohesive while empowering teams to operate independently. Governance was framed not as restriction, but as a shared language that protected trust, clarity, and quality across patient-facing and institutional communications.

Over seven years, the UT Health Austin brand evolved alongside the organization itself. Early decisions focused on establishing credibility and clarity at launch; later iterations refined the system to support scale, complexity, and new service lines without losing recognition or trust.

While the brand matured visually and operationally, its foundational principles remained consistent. This continuity allowed the organization to grow from three departments into more than sixty clinics and specialties while maintaining a unified identity. Changes were made deliberately, guided by long-term vision rather than short-term trends, ensuring the brand could adapt without fragmenting.

The brand system I designed and governed became the foundation for UT Health Austin’s growth and public presence. It enabled consistent, patient-centered communication across a complex and expanding clinical enterprise while supporting collaboration with the medical school, university, and hospital partners.

As the organization scaled, the system reduced fragmentation, improved efficiency, and provided teams with clarity and confidence in how to represent the brand. Most importantly, it established a credible, trustworthy identity that could grow over time without being reinvented.