Charter / Spectrum.
Same brand, six years apart, two different agencies, two different briefs. 2018: a holiday campaign visual toolkit (flyers, posters, social, web banner ads) with Rapp. 2024: a standing email program with Lift Agency, producing the sends, concepting a new email direction off Spectrum’s rebrand, and shipping header imagery for web. Two separate engagements on one of the largest brand surfaces in U.S. media, both written up below, switchable.
Visit spectrum.com ↗The pertinent details, what was built, what shipped, what it took.
Charter / Spectrum
Two separate engagements on Spectrum’s brand surface, a 2018 holiday campaign toolkit with Rapp, and a 2024 email program with Lift Agency built on the brand’s rebrand. Same brand system, two creative moments.
spectrum.com ↗Lead UI Designer
- Holiday campaign toolkit
- Email design + production
- Email direction concepts
- Web header imagery
- Email design
- Art direction
- Campaign creative
The Premise
One brand, two engagements, six years between them. The same client surface at two different moments of its own evolution.
Charter Communications, doing business as Spectrum, runs one of the largest cable, internet, and mobile networks in the United States. The kind of brand whose creative output is measured in millions of impressions per campaign, where every email, banner, and ad has to hold up against scale that flattens weaker creative on contact.
I worked on the Spectrum account twice, through two different agencies, six years apart. The work below is split into the two engagements. Different briefs, different deliverables, different agencies, same brand, switchable side-by-side.
Two Engagements
The two rounds of work sat at very different points in the brand's calendar (one in the holiday push, one in the standing email program) and I came at them from different studios.
The Work
Use the cards above to jump between the two engagements, or scroll through both below. Each one carries its own brief, deliverable list, and the work that came out of it.
2018 · Holiday Campaign Toolkit
Lead designer on a comprehensive holiday visual toolkit for Spectrum, with Rapp. The brief: take Spectrum's brand guidelines and supplied holiday elements and elevate them across every consumer-facing surface that wasn't email, landing-page graphics, paid ads, social posts, IG stories, flyers, and large-format posters. Full creative freedom inside the brand boundaries.
Print · flyers
In situation · poster, IG story, social
The campaign in context, the holiday system carried across a large-format poster, an Instagram placement, and an in-feed social post. Each shown in full; click to open full-size.
Web · animated banner ads
Animated GIF banner ad sets that ran across the broader campaign. Tall vertical units, hover to scroll through the full animation frame.
The full suite · everything that shipped
The 2018 holiday visual toolkit at a glance, the campaign across print, social, and web.
2024 · Email Design + Web Headers
Six years on, a different studio, a different scope. With Lift Agency, the work ran on two tracks. The first was the standing email program, producing the sends that keep a national CRM moving, at the volume and consistency a brand Spectrum's size demands. The second was concepting a new creative direction for that email, built on Spectrum's rebrand, pushing the updated brand language into layouts the program could grow into. Alongside the email work, I produced header imagery for web pages. All of it was designed in Adobe XD, then carried into Figma as the team migrated.
Email production · the standing send
Producing the standing email program end to end, new-customer and welcome acquisition offers plus TV Select Plus upsell sends, built to the brand system and adapted across offer and price variants. The everyday email creative: the same template logic holding from one send to the next. Toggle Wire / Production on any send to see the layout I drew against the finished design, both scroll on hover.
Acquisition · 01
Acquisition · 02
TV Select Plus · 01
TV Select Plus · 02
New email direction · two brand systems
Spectrum was running two branding agencies on competing brand systems at once, and the email program had to hold in both. I designed against each in parallel: an angular, geometric system (chevron framing, hard-edged blocks, explored across four layouts in light and dark) and a flowing ribbon system (the “Live Life Unlimited” wave). Same offers, two brand languages. Hover to scroll each full email; click to open it full-size.
The geometric direction, chevron framing, hard-edged blocks. Four layouts, each built to hold in light and dark.
The second agency’s direction, the flowing “Live Life Unlimited” ribbon as the brand signature. Same offers, a softer, motion-led system.
Web · header imagery
Header graphics for Spectrum web pages, in the angular system, the over-the-fold imagery that set the tone for each page. Mounted in a browser frame, the way each one sat at the top of its page.
Web header · 01
Web header · 02
Web header · 03
Web header · 04
Drop campaign assets into /wp-content/uploads/bamleon/charter/2018/{campaign,social,web}/ and /charter/2024/{email,concepts,web}/, placeholders auto-fill on next install.
Across Both Engagements
What stayed the same across six years: the standards a brand at Spectrum's scale enforces, legal, deliverability, accessibility, brand consistency. Email creative for a national media brand isn't free design space; it's design inside a fairly tight box.
What changed: the brand language, the program scale, the agency partner, and the tools the team used to ship. The 2018 holiday work was a single big push. The 2024 email suite is a continuous program. Different rhythm, same client.
Press & Platform
Major Charter and Spectrum announcements across the years the work spans, the brand platform, product launches, and milestones that set the context the email and campaign creative had to live inside.
Spectrum customer commitment, free speed increases, simplified bundled pricing, and the “Life Unlimited” brand platform
Press Charter CommunicationsSpectrum One launch, Spectrum Internet, Advanced WiFi, and an Unlimited Mobile line bundled into a single converged offer
Launch Charter CommunicationsSpectrum Mobile market launch, mobile service on the nation’s largest LTE network, the brand’s push into converged connectivity
Launch Charter CommunicationsSpectrum Mobile surpasses 10 million lines, scale milestone for the converged broadband-plus-mobile strategy
Milestone Charter CommunicationsSpectrum Mobile positioned around speed, simplicity, and value, the messaging pillars the brand’s creative carries
PressTwo Rounds, One Brand
Returning to a brand six years later is its own creative test. The work has to be sharper, the brand has moved, and the only thing carrying the through-line is your own taste.
Most case studies are one engagement. This one is two, and showing them on the same page lets the work speak to scale, to consistency, and to the specific creative skill of returning to a brand surface and not making it look like the last time you were there.