Gradera.ai
Defining the brand, marketing foundation, and early product UX for a zero-to-one AI platform entering a new category.
Gradera.ai brought me in at a moment when their digital presence was essentially a placeholder. The company had a single-page website that had been put together quickly, with little brand definition, narrative, or intention behind it. While it technically existed, it did not represent who they wanted to be, what they were building, or how they needed to show up to customers and partners.
What began as a request to improve the website quickly expanded into defining a complete brand and marketing foundation. I was brought in to cast a clear vision for how Gradera should look, sound, and present itself, and to translate that vision into a full multi-page site with a cohesive content strategy. In parallel, Gradera also needed a UX partner to begin early product design work, ensuring that brand, marketing, and product thinking evolved together from the outset.
Brand + Logo Strategy & Identity (0→1)
Generative Research
Product & UX Strategy
UX & UI Design
Early Product UX Strategy (0→1, confidential)
Marketing Website UX & UI Design
Scope
Role & Ownership
I served as the lead design partner across brand, marketing, and early product work for Gradera.ai. While final approvals lived with leadership, I owned vision, strategy, and execution, translating abstract ideas and early positioning into a cohesive, tangible system across all touchpoints.
I defined the visual direction for the brand, evolving the existing logo, introducing a new color system, and establishing a modern, moody visual identity that could scale across marketing and product experiences. This included setting the tone for illustration style, motion, and overall look and feel, as well as designing and directing all key brand and marketing assets.
On the marketing side, I owned information architecture and content structure, determining navigation, page hierarchy, and how the story unfolded across the site. Every major design decision, from layout and visual language to motion and narrative flow, was driven and proposed by me, then refined in collaboration with the team.
In parallel, I partnered closely with engineering on early product UX work, helping define net-new interaction models and workflows for a product that did not yet exist in the market. This work was highly confidential, but it informed and reinforced the brand and marketing direction, ensuring all systems evolved together from day one.
The Real Problem
The core issue wasn’t simply that Gradera.ai’s website was minimal or unfinished. It was that the company’s external presence did not reflect how they were actually operating internally or how they needed to show up to the market. The single-page site relied on outdated, service-oriented language that lacked depth, clarity, and credibility.
As a result, Gradera struggled to clearly articulate what they did, how they did it, and why it mattered. The messaging did not convey the sophistication of their offering, the ambition of the platform they were building, or the strength of the leadership team behind it. While Gradera was positioning itself as an AI-driven digital services company, their digital presence failed to signal that reality to potential customers.
This misalignment created a go-to-market problem. Without a clear narrative, visual authority, or structured story, the website could not effectively support sales conversations, establish trust, or quickly communicate value to buyers encountering the company for the first time.
What Mattered Most
Speed was critical, but speed without clarity would have failed. The work needed to move quickly while still landing on the right message, tone, and structure, not just an updated site for the sake of change.
Messaging had to be flexible and intentional. As ideas evolved, concepts were refined in real time, requiring the site and brand system to support iteration without losing coherence. Every section needed to earn its place, clearly contributing to how Gradera articulated its value and differentiated itself in the market.
Above all, the priority was alignment. The visual design, language, and structure all had to work together to accurately represent what Gradera was building and selling, ensuring the final result wasn’t just new, but meaningful and credible.
Key Decisions
One of the most important decisions was establishing and committing to a clear visual direction early. The brand needed to land decisively. Without a strong, confident aesthetic foundation, no amount of iteration on messaging or structure would have mattered. Once that direction was set, it allowed everything else to move faster with less friction.
Another key decision was prioritizing momentum over perfection. The work required spending enough time to reach a high bar for quality, while avoiding over-polishing details that would delay launch. This balance made it possible to get meaningful work live, then continue refining as messaging and positioning evolved.
Finally, iteration was treated as a feature, not a flaw. Both the marketing experience and early product work were designed to support ongoing change, allowing concepts to evolve without requiring constant reinvention. This approach ensured Gradera could move quickly while still maintaining coherence across brand, marketing, and product.
The Work
The work began by evolving Gradera’s existing logo and visual identity, focusing primarily on refining color depth, contrast, and overall tone rather than starting from scratch. This established a stronger visual foundation that could scale across brand, marketing, and product touchpoints.
On the marketing side, the effort centered on transforming a single-page site into a structured, multi-page experience organized around Gradera’s core value propositions. This included defining pages that clearly articulated the market problem, the solutions Gradera was developing, and how those solutions addressed real-world customer needs. In parallel, I supported broader brand execution through investor and conference pitch decks, trade show assets, role banners, business cards, and social media visuals, helping establish consistent brand governance across channels.
In addition to marketing, I partnered closely with Gradera’s engineering team on early product UX design. This work involved designing multiple zero-to-one software experiences to support highly specific, contextual AI-driven use cases. While these product designs are confidential and not shown publicly, they informed the overall brand and marketing direction, ensuring that what Gradera presented externally was grounded in real product thinking and capability.
Outcome
The work began by evolving Gradera’s existing logo and visual identity, focusing primarily on refining color depth, contrast, and overall tone rather than starting from scratch. This established a stronger visual foundation that could scale across brand, marketing, and product touchpoints.
On the marketing side, the effort centered on transforming a single-page site into a structured, multi-page experience organized around Gradera’s core value propositions. This included defining pages that clearly articulated the market problem, the solutions Gradera was developing, and how those solutions addressed real-world customer needs. In parallel, I supported broader brand execution through investor and conference pitch decks, trade show assets, role banners, business cards, and social media visuals, helping establish consistent brand governance across channels.
In addition to marketing, I partnered closely with Gradera’s engineering team on early product UX design. This work involved designing multiple zero-to-one software experiences to support highly specific, contextual AI-driven use cases. While these product designs are confidential and not shown publicly, they informed the overall brand and marketing direction, ensuring that what Gradera presented externally was grounded in real product thinking and capability.
