That bookstore feeling.
With hundreds of millions of page views every month, Medium had a commanding online presence but not much of a brand story, relying on release notes, blog posts, and product updates to communicate their value.
Over the course of a year, I built a highly-visible messaging ecosystem from scratch, creating landing pages, social media campaigns, and in-product banners while supporting the company’s ongoing product releases and community events.
This revived brand, created with brilliant art directors Jason Combs and Emily Kelly, honors the emotions behind reading and writing—curiosity, epiphany, fellowship—with language that skews playful without being punny.
I wanted the brand to make you feel like you do in a great independent bookstore: full of lofty intentions about what you’ll read next, brimming with ideas for that smart little notebook, already proud of what you might accomplish.
After all, we’re at our best when we’re telling ourselves a good story.
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I helped Medium court new writers with a messaging ecosystem that includes social media posts, landing pages, and email outreach.
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I partnered with Medium’s product team improve its many conversion surfaces, nudging users to become members with offers, trials, and discounts.
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I led naming and launch strategy for TK, Medium’s flow-first writing app. I also suggested a number of its core features.
Teasing TK
In the Fall of 2025, Medium began work on a brand new writing app. While it wouldn’t release for another year or so, our brand team was tasked with imagining its functionality, naming the app, and teasing the product in time for Medium Day 2025. No small feat!
After settling on a name (which you can read about here), Jason Combs and I set about casting a vision for the app’s AI potential functionality, dreaming up a flow-first writing environment that quelled distraction and spurred momentum.
While I wrote the script for this video, Jason composed the music, completed the sound design, and did the animation. I think he did it in 24 hours. My hero. (Have I mentioned he was the reason I wanted to work here?)
While we were happy with the teaser video, we wanted to send people away from the announcement with something more than a waitlist confirmation email.
And so we built a “TK Generator” that created unique, shareable “TK Tickets”—each with its own, individual TK phrase (built from a pre-approved T adjective and a K noun). Some people posted them on Bluesky.
With more than ten years of history, Medium’s App Store listing enjoyed incredible prominence, boasting a 4.8★ rating across more than 100K reviews.
However, its product storytelling had grown stale and irrelevant. I rewrote Medium’s listing to emphasize newer features and helped create two targeted versions—one for reading-focused users and another for aspiring writers.
A Fresh Face for the App Stores
An annual community event, Medium Day convenes the competent and the curious for a jam-packed day of virtual programming. In 2026, we were also announcing the release of TK, which inspired the theme “Discover something.”
Announcing Medium Day
Zoom background for my fan-favorite Medium Day session, which drew the single largest non-keynote audience of any presentation. I was not asked back.