SUCCESS STORY >

AMERICAN MADE BRAND MANAGEMENT

The American Made program by the U.S. Department of Energy celebrates and accelerates U.S. clean energy innovation. The initiative highlights prize winners, technologies, and regional impact, fostering collaboration, visibility, and engagement. The strategy makes complex energy solutions approachable, inspires participation, and reinforces the program’s role in driving American ingenuity and leadership in the clean energy economy.

CHALLENGE

  • Needed a cohesive brand to unify multiple innovation prizes, partners, and entrepreneurs.‍
  • Inconsistent visuals, messaging, and tone made the program’s purpose unclear.
  • Inconsistent visuals, messaging, and tone made the program’s purpose unclear.

SOLUTION

  • Project Management: Led multi-year brand strategy and rollout, coordinating DOE leadership, NREL teams, prize admins, and vendors..
  • Facilitation: Aligned stakeholders around a unifying mission through workshops.
  • Vendor Coordination: Managed design and content partners for visual and narrative consistency.
  • Creative Execution: Directed visual identity, messaging, and brand toolkit scalable across prizes, programs, and training.
  • Ecosystem Integration: Extended brand across 200+ organizations, training modules, and Connector platform to reinforce community and purpose

IMPACT

  • Unified brand ecosystem supporting dozens of prizes and thousands of innovators.
  • Established a scalable framework for future prize launches and communications, ensuring long-term brand continuity.
  • Boosted visibility fostering collaboration. through cohesive storytelling and consistent experience.
  • Elevated DOE’s reputation through cohesive storytelling and consistent experience.

PRIZE IDENTITY & 
COLLABORATION

  • Each American-Made prize has a distinct visual identity, messaging, and audience focus, while aligning with the overarching brand system.
  • Modular framework allows prizes to express unique themes (solar, water, manufacturing) yet remain part of the national innovation ecosystem.
  • HeroX platform supports participant collaboration, stakeholder engagement, and community building.
  • Creates a scalable, connected network where each prize contributes to the larger ecosystem under a unified brand.

WHY DO I NEED A DESIGNER WHEN I CAN USE AI?

  • Even though AI can generate designs, you still need a human designer because AI doesn’t understand your users, your brand, or your goals the way a human does.
  • AI is a tool—it can create options, but it can’t:Interpret your audience’s emotions and needs or make strategic decisions that align design with business objectives.
  • Insure quality, cohesion, and originality instead of random outputs.
  • Consider ethics, accessibility, and inclusivity.Integrate designs into real-world contexts and systems effectively.
  • Bottom line: AI speeds things up, but a designer is the guide, curator, and strategist who turns AI outputs into designs that actually work for your business and your audience.
"Companies that integrate human-centered design with AI see a 32% higher revenue growth and 56% greater customer satisfaction compared to those that don’t.”
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‍— Deloitte, 2023 Human-Centered AI Report

"John has a unique ability to see the broader picture and to think strategically; every design decision is backed by a clear understanding of the content, audience, and brand., John is someone you want on your team."
–Joelynn Schoeder, Silver Square Solutions