Vol 33. Insights from Independent Creative Leader Aaron Poe

Case Studied Experts
Meet Aaron Poe

Each week, we sit down with a marketing leader to learn more about their career, insights, and accomplishments. This week, that marketing leader is Aaron Poe, former VP of Brand Design at Hims & Hers.

From designing Beats packaging in its early days to leading brand refreshes at Square and Zapier, Aaron has spent his career shaping how some of the most recognizable names in tech and culture come to life. His throughline? Using motion design systems and storytelling to build brands that have emotional resonance.

Here are the need-to-knows about Aaron:

• He helped lead the rebrand of Square during COVID, uniting 26 fragmented sub-brands under one consistent design system.

• He developed Otto, Square’s internal motion design tool that allowed anyone in the company to create brand-consistent video content.

• He spearheaded Hims & Hers’ first Super Bowl campaign, helping the brand stand out in one of the most competitive advertising arenas.

From photography to design

Aaron’s creative path began behind a camera. “My first professional dive into creativity was as a photographer,” he said. “A lot of those skills around composition, light, and timing translate directly to design. The lens just transferred to a laptop and grids.”

After earning his degree in photography, Aaron realized that most of his work—headshots and food photography in L.A.—wasn’t fuelling his creativity. When his partner moved to New York to study fashion, he followed and pivoted to design, studying communication design at Parsons.

Aaron then graduated in 2006, right as the financial crisis began. “It was a tough time to get started,” he recalled. “I ended up doing internships everywhere: at the NFL, at a magazine called Surface, and a fashion house.”

When the recession hit, Aaron and two business partners launched their own small studio called Autograph, landing clients like Adidas, EA Sports, and Levi’s. “We were three partners who didn’t know how to run a business, but we had good clients. It was a hustle.”

That hustle eventually led him to Ammunition, a San Francisco design agency founded by Apple alum Robert Brunner.

Designing culture at Beats

On Aaron’s first day at Ammunition, he was handed a Beats by Dre packaging file. “There was no onboarding,” he laughed. “They gave me a laptop and said, ‘Here’s the file, make the new version.’”

Beats was still partnered with Monster Cable at the time, but it was about to find its identity. “A year in, Beats separated from Monster and started hiring a bunch of people from Nike. That’s when we got the mandate to elevate Beats to the same level as Nike and Apple.”

The team rose to the occasion. The black and red visual language of Beats became immersed in culture. “Around 2013, you saw Richard Sherman and Colin Kaepernick wearing Beats everywhere. You could feel the tipping point.”

By 2014, Apple acquired Beats and Aaron had evolved into a creative director role. “No one teaches you how to be a creative director in design school. You just have to learn by doing and watching people who’ve managed before you.”

Building brand systems from the inside out

After seven years at Ammunition, Aaron joined digital agency Ueno as its first brand creative director. “They were very product-focused, so my job was to help the product designers think about brand,” he said. Within a year, he built a team of four and launched a dozen visual identities for startups and large tech companies alike.

That experience sharpened his point of view on what makes a brand distinct today.

At Square, Aaron put that philosophy into action. He joined just before the pandemic—two weeks before, to be exact. “We rebranded Square entirely during COVID,” he said. “We held 22 internal brand workshops with over 100 people inside the company. That collaboration was very intentional. The more people felt like they contributed, the stronger the adoption.”

The result was a simplified, black and white brand with a custom typeface, unified motion design, and a shared visual DNA across 26 products. “It wasn’t one big reveal,” Aaron said. “It was a hundred small moments that added up to a full rebrand.”

Evolving at Hims & Hers

After Square and a stint at Zapier, Aaron joined Hims & Hers to lead brand and creative during a period of rapid growth. There, he helped launch the brand’s first-ever Super Bowl spot, which ended up taking a different direction than your typical ad formula of celebrity star power and/or humor.  

“We zigged when everyone else zagged,” he said. “The spot was emotionally shocking and showed how broken the medical system is. Then the final message was that Hims & Hers was there to provide access to real treatments.”

The campaign, which introduced GLP-1 treatments for weight management, was both provocative and purposeful. “It got attention, but more importantly, it got people thinking. We wanted to make healthcare approachable, human, and fair.”

A Standout Campaign

Of all his projects, Aaron points to one innovation that changed how Square created content: Otto, the company’s internal motion design tool.

“After we built Square’s motion system, we realized only three people in the company knew how to use After Effects. So we said, ‘What if we built our own motion tool?’”

Partnering with Athletics out of NY, his team created a web-based platform that let anyone design short motion videos, no technical experience required. “We wanted to empower anyone inside Square with an Internet connection to create motion-based content immediately. The thinking was that if you can post something to Instagram or TikTok, you can make something great with Otto.”

Otto came preloaded with Square’s colors, fonts, and brand templates, ensuring that every piece of content, from a launch video to a product demo, looked on-brand. And once it launched, folks jumped right in. 

“We hit 100% adoption of the motion system because people actually wanted to use it. It gave non-designers the ability to make something beautiful and consistent, fast.”

The Offer:

Save 20+ hours and let us run your agency RFP for free.

We’ve running agency RFPs for over 1,000 brands and the feedback is always the same… marketers hate wasting time running agency searches themselves.

Whether it’s working with big brands like The Clorox Company or fast growing DTC teams like Thrive Market or Magic Spoon, Vendry saves you time while bringing you agencies that deliver exceptional performance across Paid Social, PR, PPC, SEO and more.

With only 2 months left to hire an agency for 2026, schedule a call with our team and we’ll bring you 3 top performing agencies, handpicked for your needs, 100% free.

Advice and Takeaways

1) Build attention capital through motion.

Aaron believes motion is one of the most powerful ways to make a brand memorable. “We’re wired to notice movement. When every company is fighting for your attention, motion becomes your differentiator.”

Consider how you can build consistent motion systems that go beyond the logo animation or end card. Maybe that means focusing on transitions, pacing, and how your brand moves in every frame. Done right, motion can build recognition faster than static design.

2)  Treat rebranding as a team sport.

At Square, Aaron’s team held 22 workshops involving more than 100 employees. “Design’s a team sport,” he said. “A brand is only as good as how well it’s adopted by the internal team.”

If you’re leading a rebrand, involve cross-functional partners early and often. Instead of unveiling a surprise, make them co-authors of the process. The more people feel ownership, the better likelihood of a smooth rollout + long-term alignment.

3) Keep learning new tools (or build your own).

Aaron’s shift from photography to design to motion systems shows a pattern of reinvention. “Every time I hit a wall, I found a new tool to get past it,” he said. “Sometimes that means building the tool yourself.”

No matter what career chapter you're in, stay curious about the technologies shaping your craft. Learn the tools, experiment with them, and when they don’t exist, explore the possibility of creating them. 

Think long-term: What could help make your campaigns more successful over time? The right agency partner. And Vendry can help you meet yours, for free. Get started.