Carr Properties Rebrand
Project Overview
Carr Properties is a privately held real estate investment trust that owns, develops, and manages high-quality office properties across Washington, D.C., Boston, and Austin. At the time of the project, the company managed a portfolio of 13 commercial office properties totaling more than 4 million square feet, with additional developments underway.
Despite the scale of its portfolio, Carr Properties lacked the brand recognition of category leaders like HITT and Clark Construction. Leadership set an ambitious goal: reposition Carr from a traditional office landlord into the best-in-class name in commercial real estate — a brand synonymous with turnkey office suites, hospitality-level service, and amenities no competitor was offering. I led the creative direction to translate that ambition into a brand system capable of carrying it, working closely with the Marketing Director, the VP, and creative partner Design Army to develop the North Star concept that would anchor the strategy: The Carr Experience — a philosophy centered on customer wellbeing, productivity, and connection that became the strategic lens every subsequent deliverable was measured against.
My Role
As part of the internal leadership team, I worked alongside the Marketing Director and VP to shape the rebrand strategy, and led the creative direction — owning how the new brand identity showed up across corporate communications, marketing materials, and digital platforms.
I directed creative partner Design Army in translating our shared strategic goals into a visual and verbal system, leading the visual direction, reviewing creative territories, and making the final call on execution at each stage. I then led the rollout across internal and external communications, ensuring the brand held together as it scaled across a growing, multi-market portfolio.
Creative Approach
The strategic bet, shaped together with the Marketing Director and VP, was that Carr couldn't out-market HITT or Clark on construction credentials alone — it had to win on experience. I led the shift in visual direction from "real estate developer" to a hospitality-driven workplace brand, one that could credibly claim best-in-class service and amenities in a category where no competitor had staked that ground.
I set a visual direction built on clarity, sophistication, and flexibility — a system that needed to scale credibly across corporate communications, property marketing, digital platforms, and environmental applications without losing cohesion. Every deliverable decision was tested against one question: does this make Carr look like the most premium, most turnkey option in the market?
Key Deliverables
Brand identity development and logo system
Brand guidelines and implementation standards
Corporate website
Brand film
Marketing publications and brochures
HTML email templates
Logo
As part of the 2019 rebrand, I directed the identity development process with Design Army, translating the "best-in-class, turnkey" brand strategy into a refined logo system built to scale across corporate communications, property marketing, and digital platforms.
I pushed for a mark that read as more contemporary and premium than the outgoing identity — a visual foundation strong enough to support the company's expanding portfolio and to hold its own against better-known competitors.
The Carr Experience
With The Carr Experience established as the North Star, I led the creative work that brought it to life — giving prospective customers a concrete reason to choose Carr over a lower-service competitor rather than leaving the philosophy as an abstract statement.
I led the development of creative materials that made this positioning credible and specific: showing how design, amenities, and building operations actually delivered on the promise of a more engaging, upscale workplace.
Sustainability Report
Being best-in-class meant leading on more than aesthetics. Together, with the Marketing Director, we directed the launch of Carr Properties' first annual Sustainability Report, using the new brand system to give the company's environmental and customer-wellbeing commitments the same premium, credible presentation as its marketing materials.
COVID-19 Communications
When the pandemic hit, the brand system had to prove it could flex under pressure — fast, and without diluting the premium positioning we'd just established. I led the rapid extension of the identity to cover customer safety and building-protocol communications, making real-time calls on tone, content, and rollout as the situation evolved.
I directed the creation of:
a customer guidebook outlining building protocols
infographics communicating health and safety measures
environmental signage
an informational safety video
The result was a set of materials that kept customers informed and reassured during a rapidly shifting situation, while reinforcing — rather than undercutting — the hospitality-first brand we'd built.
Project Impact
The rebrand gave Carr Properties a brand system credible enough to compete for attention against category leaders like HITT and Clark Construction — repositioning the company from a traditional office landlord to a hospitality-driven, best-in-class workplace developer. Part of that shift was intentional: as an extension of The Carr Experience, we called them customers rather than tenants, reinforcing a sense of place and partnership rather than a transactional landlord relationship.
That philosophy was tested during the pandemic. By prioritizing customer safety and comfort throughout a period of major uncertainty, Carr retained nearly its entire customer base — direct validation that the brand promise held up under real-world pressure, not just in marketing materials.
The brand system also proved flexible enough to support the company's next phase of growth, extending credibly as Carr expanded beyond its original D.C. footprint into Boston and Texas. The system also drove measurable performance on the ground: coding and analyzing HTML email campaigns with brokers across all 13 properties, using data-informed creative iteration, boosted click rates by 6%.