Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren

A decade directing the creative output of Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren — an AmLaw 200 law firm with offices across seven cities and more than 200 attorneys. The role spans everything from brand strategy and identity systems to product design and one-off executions that tend to be more interesting than the category suggests.

The 2022 Rebrand

In 2022, Reinhart undertook the most significant repositioning in the firm’s history. I led the creative side of the entire initiative — from the initial research phase through agency selection, concept development, and final rollout. The work began with genuine discovery: internal and external interviews, a structured effort to articulate what distinguishes a 130-year-old firm in a market full of credible competitors.

I identified and vetted the strategy and design agencies we brought on, ran the selection process, and managed both vendor relationships through the life of the project. My role was to act as the connective tissue between the agencies, the work, and the firm’s leadership — translating strategy into executable creative decisions, and presenting findings, concepts, and recommendations directly to the CEO, CMO, and Board of Directors. The result was a new identity, a revamped digital presence, and a design system built to hold up at the scale of a multi-office national practice.

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Reinhart Ale

In 2017, the firm wanted a presence at the Milwaukee Business Journal’s annual Book of Lists event that would actually be remembered. The answer was a limited-edition craft beer — brewed in partnership with Reinhart client MobCraft, packaged in custom 16 oz. cans designed entirely in-house.

The brief was to create something that felt like Reinhart without feeling like legal marketing. The can design walked that line: bold enough to stand out on a table full of branded merchandise, considered enough to reflect the firm’s character. The Reinhart Ale won a Gold ADDY Award at the American Advertising Awards in Madison — the largest creative advertising competition in the country — in the Specialty Advertising and Direct Marketing category.

Reinhart IP-A

The following year brought a second collaboration with MobCraft — this time anchored in the firm’s Intellectual Property practice. The IP-A carried its own identity, a distinct creative direction that played on the practice area without leaning on the obvious. A quieter win than the Gold ADDY, but one I’m equally proud of.

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Annual Cycling Jerseys

Each year I design the cycling jerseys for Reinhart’s internal firm events — a recurring commission that has become one of the more enjoyable constraints on the calendar. The jersey format is demanding: a small canvas, specific technical requirements, and an audience that will actually wear the result. Each edition is distinct, building a body of work that sits somewhere between branded merchandise and sport identity design.

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Airport Advertising

Reinhart runs advertising campaigns across Milwaukee’s Mitchell International Airport — a sustained presence in one of the most demanding environments for print. Large-format airport work lives or dies on legibility and stopping power from distance, often with only seconds of a traveller’s attention. I’ve directed and produced these campaigns across multiple iterations, balancing the firm’s positioning with the practical demands of the format.

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Event Graphics & Newsletters

The day-to-day creative work includes event graphics, email campaigns, and marketing collateral across all of the firm’s practice areas and offices. At the scale of a multi-office national firm, consistency is its own discipline — maintaining brand integrity across hundreds of annual deliverables, across teams and contexts that don’t always make it easy.

Internal Apps & Products

Beyond the outward-facing work, I’ve led the design of internal tools built to support how the firm’s attorneys develop and manage client relationships — products that required close collaboration across legal, marketing, and technology, in a context where clarity and trust are non-negotiable.