Hi there.

I'm Lee Norris, a Cleveland based Creative and Brand Director with over 20 years experience in bringing brands to life.

A lifelong passion for creativity.

I believe creativity is a constant remixing of all the emotional, tactile, visual, and audio experiences we share as humans. Finding new ways to combine the familiar and unfamiliar or to recreate one experience in another form - these abilities are a part of each and every one of us. Like other energy types, it needs to be cultivated and directed, but it can be the most transformative power we wield when used thoughtfully.

Skills to pay the bills, and help clients.

Systems change, but staying up-to-date is important. For CRMs this means for everything from Wordpress to Hubspot to Marketo and Goldmine - I've been there, lived it, and have you covered. And in design beyond Adobe's expanding offers I'm well versed in Procreate and Figma for digital design and prototyping. Here's a sample of some key systems and related experiences:

  • Marketing Sales CRM -
    Hubspot, Marketo,
    Goldmine, Salesforce
  • Design & Copy -
    Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign,
    Premiere, After Effects, Procreate
  • Data Visualization -
    Tableau, Omniplan,
    Omnigraffle
  • Email Deployment -
    Hubspot, Mailchimp, Drip,
    Constant Contact
  • Polling & Research -
    Pollfish, MRI/Forrester,
    Qualtrics, Survey Monkey
  • Coding & Prototyping -
    BBEdit, Figma, Sketch
    Adobe XD, Rive

Constantly growing, learning, and adding to this list is my goal. Beyond staying relevant, I'm always excited to explore how technology can improve our communications and the associated reporting.

A rich history of working with business and consumer brands.

I've been lucky to work with brands that exist in many spaces - from B2B, B2C, B2G, and every Person to Person point in between. This gives me the ability to bring the best and most effective communication to any job - a wide perspective that informs business and consumer messaging.

Design Management
& Creative Direction

Through my career I've had the great fortune of working with, directing, and managing some of the most talented artists across Northeast Ohio. In my time working alongside design, development, and copy teams I've learned the importance of being a good design manager - to understand the motivations, challenges, and needs of creatives. Often we are wired a little different than other business units, and knowing how to navigate that can help with productivity, recruiting, and retention.

The pieces here represent some of the organizational design thinking and talent planning that helped me create some of the most dynamic teams and branding.

Brand Consulting
brand Planning

As my career moved into 2018 - brand planning, brand management, and a startup insights became a focus of mine as I established the brand consulting arm of Cleveland's largest ad agency. As production art and digital offerings were becoming more and more commoditized, our team worked to create rapid polling, brand scores, and planning sessions that were affordable and actionable for small to medium sized organizations.

Illustration & Design

Though my career has taken me in many directions; working as an analyst, becoming a writer, and discovering a knack for managing creatives - my love of the intersection of form and function remains as strong as ever. Purpose driven design, the ability to communicate design choices and the impact on audiences and aesthetics keep me running hard each day at any opportunity. If there's an elegant and thoughtful design solution to a problem I aim to find it.

Full Portfolio

This page is just a taste of the types of work I am passioante about but in many ways only scratches the surface. If you're interested in seeing and learning more about my history, please download my full portfolio.

Get in touch

Interested in Working Together?  Whether you're looking for a creative partner or have a new idea for an illustration or marketing initiative, I'd love to hear about what you're working on and see if there's a fit.