I'm Danielle Vernelson, a Senior Visual Designer with 18+ years of experience helping brands tell compelling stories through cohesive, high-impact design. I specialize in brand systems, marketing design, UI/UX, and presentation design — with a track record of turning complex ideas into visuals that are clear, engaging, and strategically smart. My clients have included SaaS companies like Highspot and Deeto, where my work has contributed to measurable outcomes including a 400% increase in community engagement and email click-through rates climbing from 2.4% to 12.4%. I work best in long-term contract relationships where I can truly embed in a brand, understand its voice, and deliver consistently excellent work over time. Whether you need a full brand system built from scratch, a suite of marketing assets, a website redesign, or executive presentations that make leadership look great, I bring both strategic thinking and polished execution to every project. I'm based in Fort Collins, CO and available for remote work worldwide.…

Danielle Vernelson

I'm Danielle Vernelson, a Senior Visual Designer with 18+ years of experience helping brands tell compelling stories through cohesive, high-impact design. I specialize in brand systems, marketing design, UI/UX, and presentation design — with a track record of turning complex ideas into visuals that are clear, engaging, and strategically smart. My clients have included SaaS companies like Highspot and Deeto, where my work has contributed to measurable outcomes including a 400% increase in community engagement and email click-through rates climbing from 2.4% to 12.4%. I work best in long-term contract relationships where I can truly embed in a brand, understand its voice, and deliver consistently excellent work over time. Whether you need a full brand system built from scratch, a suite of marketing assets, a website redesign, or executive presentations that make leadership look great, I bring both strategic thinking and polished execution to every project. I'm based in Fort Collins, CO and available for remote work worldwide.…

Available to hire

I’m Danielle Vernelson, a Senior Visual Designer with 18+ years of experience helping brands tell compelling stories through cohesive, high-impact design. I specialize in brand systems, marketing design, UI/UX, and presentation design — with a track record of turning complex ideas into visuals that are clear, engaging, and strategically smart. My clients have included SaaS companies like Highspot and Deeto, where my work has contributed to measurable outcomes including a 400% increase in community engagement and email click-through rates climbing from 2.4% to 12.4%.

I work best in long-term contract relationships where I can truly embed in a brand, understand its voice, and deliver consistently excellent work over time. Whether you need a full brand system built from scratch, a suite of marketing assets, a website redesign, or executive presentations that make leadership look great, I bring both strategic thinking and polished execution to every project. I’m based in Fort Collins, CO and available for remote work worldwide.

See more

Language

English
Fluent

Work Experience

Freelance Senior Visual Designer & Owner at Insight Creative
June 1, 2023 - Present
Founded Insight Creative to provide contract design services, partnering with clients across industries to become a trusted extension of their in-house teams. Served as contract visual designer for SaaS companies such as Highspot & Deeto, collaborating with marketing, product, and development on websites, presentations, eBooks, social media, video, and animation; built scalable brand systems and templates to support growth. Redefined Deeto’s email templates to lift CTR from 2.4% to 12.4% and completed a full redesign of Highspot’s Community website, contributing to a 400% increase in engagement time and beating the YTD stickiness goal by 11 percentage points. Led a fast-paced rebrand for Vaisala, delivering 65+ assets in two months and ensuring brand consistency across teams.
Senior Visual Designer & Design Lead at Highspot
August 1, 2019 - June 1, 2023
Design Lead for the Highspot Spark Community, owning UI/UX design in Figma, collaborating with product and engineering, and providing art direction for marketing collateral. Redesigned the Spark Community Discussions forum (UX research, prototyping, usability testing with 100% task success rate) and overhauled Sales Enablement courses. Created visually compelling graphics for social, reports, events, email campaigns, and eBooks; engineered 25+ detailed reports and branded assets for 11 large-scale events. Managed Jira and Airtable workflows for project tracking.
Senior Graphic Designer at Actualize Marketing
August 1, 2018 - July 1, 2019
Delivered high-impact digital assets for tech clients, including infographics, social graphics, event materials, and presentations. Collaborated with a team to create and export animated ads in HTML, MP4, and GIF formats, expanding capabilities and improving asset performance.
Graphic Designer and Producer at Wire Stone
January 1, 2005 - February 1, 2011
HP-focused designer and producer, creating internal sales kits, websites, collateral, videos, infographics, and campaigns. Later served as Producer, coordinating timelines and supervising designers and writers, and acting as Art Director to ensure brand guidelines across all deliverables.

Education

Bachelor of Fine Arts, Graphic Design at Colorado State University
August 1, 2000 - June 1, 2004
Google Foundations of User Experience (UX) Design Professional Certificate at Coursera/Google
December 1, 2025 - February 1, 2026

Qualifications

Add your qualifications or awards here.

Industry Experience

Software & Internet, Professional Services, Media & Entertainment, Other
    uniE621 Presentation Design
    Goal of the projects: Transform complex ideas into clear, compelling visuals that effectively engaged audiences. By prioritizing storytelling and design best practices, these projects aimed to support decision-making with customers. Role: Graphic Designer View My Presentation Samples Online: https://www.twine.net/signin…
    uniE621 Evolving & Shaping the Deeto Brand
    Goal of the project: Deeto is a fast-growing SaaS company founded in 2022. When I joined, a new visual identity was underway, but most templates didn’t yet exist. My role was to translate early brand guidelines into a cohesive system of templates—while helping evolve the brand into a more polished, thought-leader presence. So, my goal was to support Deeto’s marketing team by creating scalable templates for publications, presentations, social content, and videos Created while freelancing at: Incite Media Role: Brand Designer View the Case Study: https://www.twine.net/signin…
    uniE621 Spark Community Redesign, and Integrating SE PRO
    Goal of the project: The Highspot App was going through a redesign, so we wanted to align the Spark Community with this new look and feel. Additionally, we would be merging two existing communities—Spark Community and Sales Enablement PRO—to create a unified, cohesive user experience. Here's how my contributions helped us beat our goal of user stickiness by 11 percentage points, views by 14,000, and new users by an incredible 59,000. Created while freelancing at: Incite Media Role: UI/UX Designer View the Case Study: https://www.twine.net/signin…