Improving Cross-Functional Brand Interpretation Through Visual Governance Layers

Thermo Fisher’s biotech division operates within a highly structured and regulated brand environment, where precision, consistency, and scientific credibility are critical across all marketing outputs.

As the organization scales content production across multiple teams, channels, and external partners, maintaining consistent brand interpretation becomes a key operational challenge—not at the identity level, but at the execution layer.

Hatch worked with the existing brand system to explore how visual consistency can be strengthened not by redesigning identity, but by improving how that identity is interpreted across teams.

The Objective

To translate an established enterprise brand system into a structured visual framework that supports:

• Cross-functional alignment in brand interpretation
• Faster and more consistent content production across teams
• Reduced dependency on subjective design review cycles
• Scalable execution across marketing, product, and communications functions

The goal was not to redefine the brand identity, but to strengthen how it is operationalized in real-world marketing environments.

The Challenge

In enterprise organizations like Thermo Fisher’s biotech division, brand systems are rarely absent.

The challenge emerges when those systems need to function across:

• Multiple internal stakeholders (marketing, product, scientific communications)
• High-volume content pipelines across digital and social channels
• External agencies interpreting the same brand system in parallel
• Varying production contexts with different speed and priority demands
• While the brand identity itself is well-defined, the execution environment introduces variability in interpretation.

This leads to:

• Inconsistent application of visual hierarchy across teams
• Repeated clarification cycles during creative production
• Slower approval workflows due to subjective alignment discussions
• Fragmentation across campaign outputs despite shared guidelines

The core issue is not lack of brand direction, but lack of a shared interpretation layer across execution contexts.

The Process

To address this, Hatch focused on building a structured translation layer between existing brand guidelines and real-world content execution.

→ Establishing a Stylescaping System

Instead of introducing new brand direction, Hatch worked from existing visual assets and guidelines to build a structured stylescape system.

This system functioned as an internal reference layer that:

• Consolidates existing brand elements into structured visual logic
• Clarifies hierarchy, spacing, and composition patterns for execution
• Bridges ambiguity between brand guidelines and applied design outputs

Two operational states were developed:

• A Controlled System (Light) for clarity-driven, corporate, and scientific communication contexts
• An Expressive System (Dark) for campaign, innovation, and social-first storytelling environments

This dual structure allows teams to adapt execution without deviating from core brand logic.

→ Translating Brand System into Execution Frameworks

The stylescape was then translated into three LinkedIn carousel system structures designed for scalable content production:

• Data-led visual systems for structured, boardroom-readable communication
• Narrative progression systems for complex scientific storytelling
• Modular brand systems for repeatable, multi-team content creation

Each system was designed to reduce interpretation variance at the point of production.

→ Supporting Cross-Functional Brand Interpretation

Beyond design output, the framework functions as a shared reference point across stakeholders.

This enables:

• Faster alignment between marketing, product, and creative teams
• Reduced dependency on centralized design review for every asset
• More consistent execution across distributed content teams
• Clearer feedback loops during production cycles

The focus shifts from correcting outputs to standardizing interpretation upstream.

The Outcome

The implementation of a structured stylescaping system creates a more predictable execution environment for enterprise marketing teams.

Rather than relying on repeated subjective alignment during production, teams operate from a shared visual logic that reduces ambiguity across channels and stakeholders.

For organizations at scale, this improves:

• Campaign production speed
• Cross-functional alignment efficiency
• Consistency across multi-channel outputs
• Confidence in distributed brand execution

In a nutshell

Hatch’s work with enterprise biotech brand systems focuses on a specific gap in B2B marketing operations:

Not the absence of brand identity—but the inconsistency of how that identity is interpreted at scale.

Through stylescaping, we build structured visual translation layers that allow marketing organizations to execute faster, align more consistently, and scale brand systems across teams without increasing governance overhead.