Samantha Bohn

San Jose, CA, USA

Fractional Creative Director — Scalable brand & design systems for B2B tech (Apple, Adobe, Cerebras AI)

I'm a fractional creative director for B2B tech. I come in with a journalist's instinct for what your company actually needs to say — then I build the brand system and high-stakes assets to say it. Most designers wait for a brief. I start with the question a journalist would ask: what's the real story here, and why isn't it landing?

Samantha Bohn

Work

  • Cerebras AI
    • Pitch deck: Restructuring 400-slide pitch deck, layering in narrative structure to make complex AI hardware positioning land with investors.
    • Company PowerPoint: Built ~40 custom slide templates for 1,000-person org, replacing ad hoc system with a scalable consistent framework.
    • Case study: Architected a 10-module, auto-layout Figma case study system, enabling the design team to produce customer stories at scale.


Experience

  • Cerebras

    Cerebras

    Fractional Marketing Designer

    Jan 2026 - Present

    • Pitch deck: Restructuring 400-slide pitch deck, layering in narrative structure to make complex AI hardware positioning land with investors.
    • Company PowerPoint: Built ~40 custom slide templates for 1,000-person org, replacing ad hoc system with a scalable consistent framework.
    • Case study: Architected a 10-module, auto-layout Figma case study system, enabling the design team to produce customer stories at scale.
  • Helix

    Helix

    Fractional Brand Designer

    Jun 2025 - Present

    • Brand guide: Authoring first formal brand guide in org history — a 40+ page system going beyond color & logo to define full visual language.
    • Ops: Brought creative ops to marketing, ensuring files can always be found, opened without resistance, and are the source of truth.
    • Web: Redesigned site navigation for patients and providers, launched first-ever marquee content, and built Figma component & variant system.
    • Marketing: Modernized brand expression across case studies, social, & tradeshow — developing a new approach for a conservative, legacy brand
  • Adobe

    Adobe

    Senior Visual Designer (Contractor with The Argonaut)

    Jan 2023 - Apr 2025

    Adobe is a global software company that creates tools and cloud services for digital content, marketing automation, and document management, including Creative Cloud and Marketo.

    • Partnered closely with the content team and Adobe stakeholders to refine messaging, prioritize marketer benefits, and iterate storyboards through stakeholder reviews.
    • Storyboarded and directed a Marketo Measure explainer video — signed off in one round by Adobe's brand team, atypical for a hero asset
    • Produced whitepapers and social assets for Adobe Summit, maintaining strict brand compliance amid a continuously evolving corporate identity
  • Apple

    Apple

    Senior Visual Designer (Contractor with The Argonaut)

    Jan 2023 - Apr 2025

    • Tamed a notoriously chaotic WWDC production cycle by building pixel-perfect Mac Sonoma screens in Sketch to scale the entire visual system.
    • Pitched and led first internal photoshoot for Apple 3DVM — proving the concept and prompting my team to build a full photography practice
    • Translated technical complexity into executive-ready Keynote presentations, enabling C-suite decision-making at leadership level.
    • Visualized in-development Apple technologies across Keynotes, signage, intranet, and video — giving creative teams assets to carry forward.
  • Protiviti

    Protiviti

    Digital Art Director

    Mar 2017 - Jul 2021

    • Drove strategy and design of digital and brand initiatives.
    • Managed and built design systems for team across Xd, internal DAM, brand guides, Adobe libraries, and photography systems.
    • Spearheaded design of editorial site, Vision by Protiviti, which included IA, UX, UI, branding, and naming, as well as WCAG 2.0 accessibility standard.
    • Overhauled employee onboarding through development of interactive presentations that transformed new employee engagement.
    • Oversaw management of brand guide and style guides, recommending updates to VP of Marketing based on evolution of brand, trends, and competitors.
    • Ignited energy of content marketing team and output by designing web versions of work previously done only as long-form PDFs.
    • Developed prototypes for AI-powered HR tool, as well as joined the hiring team as a consultant to hire the first product designer for the firm.
    • Audited and then expanded the brand within the first few months from just a few asset types and templates to a flexible system praised for its ingenuity for innovating within bounds.
    • Identified the need for and built in partnership with marketing a playbook that established governance and UI design system for creating digital intellectual property (IP).
    • Developed prototypes for Protiviti's first-ever enterprise SaaS, an AI-powered HR tool.
    • Collaborated with QA team and internal and external development teams to hand off assets and provide documentation in an agile environment.
  • Thelen

    Thelen

    Digital Art Director

    Nov 2011 - Nov 2016

    • For 5 years, I worked at Thelen as the solo art director. Through a balance of skill sets, I designed strategic approaches for 30+ B2B and B2C clients' brands, websites and marketing.
    • Conducted user interviews of bakers across U.S. for Red Star Yeast, then synthesized, wrote, and delivered a new brand strategy to the marketing team.
    • Increased event engagement by 3,000% using an experiential strategy for a water education group.
    • Developed classic UI design strategies still in use today for the Upper Midwest's leading bread manufacturer.
    • Implemented front-end dev for several client sites as well as custom WordPress and Kentico CMS setups.
    • Multi-tasked as copywriter, developing copy for advertisements, publications, and websites for both B2B and B2C clients, focusing on conversational tone.