Katrina McHugh is a creative lead and brand systems thinker skilled in building and maintaining brands in the real world.

ABOUT Katrina

I partner with founders and teams to shape, grow, and sustain purpose-driven brands as they evolve.

I’ve been designing for nearly two decades, both in-house and alongside growing teams, creating brand systems and assets that are refined, consistent, and genuinely usable as organizations scale.

Known for being collaborative, resourceful, and easy to work with, I move between big-picture thinking and hands-on design, helping clients maintain and grow cohesive, considered brands.

Linkedin | SAY HELLO!

Katrina is simply the most talented designer and creative person I’ve ever worked with. She brought our brand to life in a way I’ve never seen before ... her instincts are outstanding.
JIM BELL
CMO LEAN DATA, FORMER CMO TORCH.IO
Katrina is one of the most creative, collaborative, and passionate people I've had the opportunity to work with during my career. Not only is her work always excellent, she gets the work done in a fun, collaborative, and thoughtful way.
RAY HUANG
VP of Marketing @ Wisq, formerly at LinkedIn, Replicant, Glint
Katrina is that rare creative who possesses all the design energy and ability to wow the world, while also delivering an extraordinary volume of work aligned to business needs. Over and over, I watched her make the ordinary extraordinary and make it look easy.
DANA GUTHRIE
EMEA Demand Generation, PR, Customer Marketing, Storytelling
Katrina delivers beautiful results and can synthesize complex technical ideas into eye-catching visuals.
RICHARD KLEIN
LIGHTSTEP

AT HOME, I'M...

  • Walking out of my local library with an unreasonable stack of books about women artists.
  • Deep in a design history rabbit hole that involves many screenshots I may or may not ever revist.
  • Catching glimpses of herons, crows, coyotes, and bison on my daily strolls through Golden Gate Park.
  • Playing uno, chess or ping pong with my 7-year old.

AT WORK, I'M...

  • Helping organizations stay recognizable as AI makes everything look the same.
  • Building design systems that make good design easier than bad design.
  • Helping teams create their own materials instead of depending on me forever.
  • Delightedly combing through inspiration for my branding clients.

Experience

Flight Design Co.

Co-Founder, CREATIVE DIRECTOR, GRAPHIC DESIGNER

Co-created an innovative branding process targeting small businesses and organizations that has branded over 130 businesses to date. Collaborate within a lean, talented team of three to provide clients with direct ongoing support in strategy, creative direction, and graphic design.

Torch.io

Head of brand and creative

Collaborated with the executive team to create fundraising and strategic communications materials. Partnered across product, sales, marketing, content, and people teams to develop and maintain the company's visual brand system. Established creative operations processes and self-service tools that improved consistency, efficiency, and adoption across the organization.

Dauphine Press

ART DIRECTOR

Head of design efforts of a small luxury letterpress print shop. Provided direct 1:1 creative direction to high-end clients, managed team of three designers, created and published yearly design collections, provided all marketing and sales design from concept to completion.

EDUCATION

University California Santa Barbara

Bachelors of Arts (BA), Creative Studies, focus in bookmaking

Universitat de Barcelona

Fine and Studio Arts

PUBLICATIONS

Pop Charts: 100 Iconic Lyrics Visualized

HarperCollins · Jun 26, 2018

HONORS & AWARDS

HOW Design Annual Awards

2009, 2011