Web Design
Lead designer on websites, landing pages, and banners — across home services,
healthcare, specialty retail, and B2B.
Garden City — Lennox Promotion Banner
Spring promotion banner for a Missoula Lennox dealer — balancing two stacked offers (rebates + 12-month financing) in a single homepage hero while maintaining clear hierarchy.
HVAC & Plumbing Unlimited — Cooling Tune-Up Banner
Homepage banner anchored by a clear schedule-now CTA — pairing the $96 tune-up price with Carrier equipment to land both the offer and the brand credibility.
Capital Heating — Spring Promotion Landing Page
Landing page with tiered March/April/May pricing — designed to lock in early bookings before seasonal demand drives prices up.
MARSCare — Home Health Care Website
Responsive website for a 35-year home health care provider serving multi-generational Philadelphia families — designed for accessibility, bilingual access, and the trust signals families look for when choosing care for a loved one.
Countryside Stove & Chimney — Specialty Retailer Website
Product-forward website for a Western New York fireplace showroom operating two co-branded identities — Countryside Stove & Chimney and All Ways Warm — unified under one site with built-in lead capture.
Demar Direct — Direct Marketing Agency Website
Responsive website for a 35-year direct marketing agency serving enterprise clients — designed to communicate the full service stack from data and print through lettershop and postal logistics, anchored by named-client credibility (AARP, TruGreen, SoFi, BibleLeague).
Figma & Prototyping
Self-directed prototyping work alongside live client projects — building fluency in Figma,
interaction design, and brand-voice systems.
Propel Agency — Rebrand PrototypePropel Agency — Rebrand Prototype
Lead designer on a 2024 agency rebrand at Cornerstone Advertising. The original concept was never launched, so I rebuilt it in Figma — restaged as "Propel" — as a self-directed project to deepen my prototyping practice and showcase interaction design, hero strategy, and brand voice in an interactive format.
Click through to interact with the live design.
Email Campaigns
Hand-coded HTML, CSS, and responsive email design — built for cross-client compatibility from Outlook through dark mode. Work spans higher education, lifestyle media, home services, food & beverage, wine, and marine retail.
Current Electric
Lead Generation Email Residential & commercial electrical services — Milwaukee, WI
The University of Chicago
Enrollment Marketing Email Quantum Science certificate program — higher education
Oliver Vineyard and Winery
Brand Engagement Email Direct-to-consumer wine brand — Indiana
MadameNoire
Editorial Newsletter Lifestyle media for women
of color
Lou Malnati's
Welcome & Promotional Email New customer onboarding — Chicago deep-dish pizzeria
Intermarine
Event Promotion Email Palm Beach International Boat Show — luxury yacht dealer
Display Advertising
Brand awareness campaign across four display sizes — desktop and mobile — using animated GIFs
to drive attention without sacrificing readability at small sizes.
300 × 600px
Large Vertical
300 × 250px
Medium Rectangle
320 × 50px
Mobile Banner
728 × 90px
Leaderboard
A $79 safety inspection promotion in Gubbels' signature warm palette — teal, cream, and orange —
designed to feel like a friendly reminder from a neighbor.
300 × 600px
Large Vertical
300 × 250px
Medium Rectangle
320 × 50px
Mobile Banner
728 × 90px
Leaderboard
A $3,500-off Lennox promotion in Weather Master's pop-art voice — halftone dots, comic bursts,
and 'I Love Those Guys!' carrying across the full ad set.
300 × 600px
Large Vertical
300 × 250px
Medium Rectangle
320 × 50px
Mobile Banner
728 × 90px
Leaderboard
Template systems built for marketing teams to produce on-brand social content without a designer in the loop.
Weather Master — Pop-Art Template System
A pop-art template system for Weather Master — extending the brand's illustrated personality across social posts so every piece feels unmistakably theirs.
MightyServ — Digital-First Template System
A clean, tech-forward template system for MightyServ — giving an HVAC brand the visual polish and consistency of a national home services company.
Ballard — Legacy Brand Template System
A template system for Ballard, a 75-year home services brand — preserving the heritage mark while extending the identity into modern social channels.
Brand Marks & Identity
Wordmarks, brand marks, badges, and icon systems — across home services, automotive, and digital media.
Legendary Care Club — Multi-Brand Program Mark
Brand mark unifying a three-brand home services family under one VIP membership program — heating, plumbing, and electrical.
Comfort Club — Service Membership Mark
Modular three-icon system for Venice Cooling & Plumbing's Comfort Club service plan — one hexagon each for indoor air quality, heating, and cooling, designed to work together as a unit or stand alone in single-service contexts.
Venice Cooling & Plumbing — Print Campaign Badge
Retro hexagonal badge for an early Venice Cooling & Plumbing service plan flyer — using vintage signage cues (the gable roof, crossed pipe wrench, and limited palette) to position the company as established and trustworthy.
Blue Ox — State Fair Deals Promo Mark
Festival-inspired starburst for Blue Ox Heating & Air's Minnesota State Fair campaign — imagery art-directed in Adobe Firefly, composed for retail visibility.
Flex Automotive Performance — Wordmark Logo
Bold motorsport-inspired wordmark with racing stripes and cyan accents for an automotive performance restoration shop.
Excitant Digital Media — Brand Identity
Minimalist wordmark for a digital media agency — built around a custom X that signals creative energy.
Print Design
Production design across direct mail, document systems, packaging, billboards, and stationery —
designed to meet production, vendor, and brand consistency requirements.
Weather Master — Art-Directed Tech Leave- Behind Flyers
Published leave-behind flyers blending Adobe Firefly imagery with custom typography across pop-art, retro, and automotive themes.
ValPak — Multi-Client HVAC Direct Mail
Co-op direct mail campaigns built within ValPak's strict template and pricing requirements — keeping each HVAC client's voice intact.
Postcard Direct Mail — HVAC Service Promotions
Front-and-back postcard campaigns balancing promotional offers, USPS mailing specs, and each client's brand standards.
Gilman — Seasonal Billboard Series
Multi-season billboard series featuring Gilman's G‑Man mascot — summer cooling and fall furnace campaigns — designed for outdoor scale and freeway-speed legibility.
MightyServ — Membership Agreement
Tiered service contract document for a membership program — Bronze, Silver, and Gold tiers, with pricing and legal terms designed to read clearly.
MightyServ & Canoga Park Mechanical Solutions — Stationery Suite
A shared shield, two brand names, one location. Stationery system for MightyServ Heating & Air Conditioning and Canoga Park Mechanical Solutions — distinct on their own, cohesive as a family.
Royal & Langnickel — Artist Paint Retail Packaging
Packaging system for the Essentials retail paint line — layout, typography, and photography direction across Acrylic, Gouache, Oil Color, and Watercolor mediums, designed for shelf legibility and consistent brand identity across the line.
Shirey Cadillac — Year End Clearance Mailer
Multi-panel year-end clearance mailer for a luxury Cadillac dealership — built within Cadillac's brand standards while organizing inventory pricing, financing offers, and dealer messaging into a single readable piece.
Shirey Cadillac — Service Special Mailer
Service-side self-mailer for the same Cadillac dealership — different audience, different goal: keeping existing owners coming back for service. Polished and upscale while still functioning as a coupon piece with three savings offers.
Long-Form Design
Long-form documents for Cornerstone Advertising — case studies and white papers serving home services contractors. Lead designer working with the sales team to translate strategic content into branded, layered reading experiences.
Falcon Forges a High-Flying Future
Case Study •
Home Services Marketing Results12-page case study built around multi-stakeholder voices, financial data visualization, and year-by-year strategic narrative — translating a high-stakes business growth story into a polished long-form reading experience.
The Home Services Marketing BlueprintThe Home Services Marketing Blueprint
White Paper •
Home Services Marketing StrategyComprehensive 16-page strategic guide spanning the full home services marketing landscape. Designed with tiered growth roadmaps, channel-by-channel comparisons, and varied visual treatments to make a dense survey feel navigable.
Setting Realistic Expectations in MarketingSetting Realistic Expectations in Marketing
White Paper •
Home Services Marketing Strategy12-page narrative-driven white paper using a marathon-vs-sprint metaphor to reframe contractor mindset around marketing investment. Designed around a featured business owner persona, recurring author pull-quotes, and data tables.
Editorial Foundations
Multi-year run as designer for Porter Hospital's quarterly health magazine — my entry point into production design and the foundation for the multi-channel work above. Responsible for editorial and advertising layout, prepress, and coordination with photography, copy, and print vendors across 60,000-household quarterly distribution.
StayHealthy Magazine — Spring 2008 Edition
Patient-photography Cover •
Feature on Self-management of
Chronic Conditions"Excellence in Treating Heart Failure" Articles on heart failure treatment, diabetes management, hip surgery, and herb-prescription interactions — written for patients and caregivers learning to live well with chronic conditions.
StayHealthy Magazine — Summer 2008 Edition
Product-photography Cover •
Feature Spread on New Technology"The da Vinci Robotic Surgical System" New technology at Porter — robotic surgery, advanced CT imaging, and minimally invasive hip replacement, with coverage focused on what patients actually feel: shorter recoveries, smaller incisions, and getting home sooner.
StayHealthy Magazine — Winter 2008 Edition
Group-photography Cover •
American Heart Month Tie-in"Porter Celebrates Wear Red Day" American Heart Month coverage on women's heart health, bone density, cancer screening, and heart valve surgery — focused on risks readers might recognize in themselves or someone they love.
About
Designer. Production Lead. Life-Long Learner.
I'm Maria Braun-Perez — a designer and production lead based in Northwest Indiana, with ten-plus years across editorial, brand, web, print, social, and email. I believe great design starts with curiosity — and that good designers never stop evolving. I approach every project with fresh eyes and an eagerness to explore new creative methods.
My Personal Journey
My fine-arts background has opened opportunities to serve as past President of the Illiana Artists (opens in new tab) (a regional artists organization serving Illinois and Indiana), to volunteer for the Chicago chapter of the Taproot Foundation (opens in new tab), and to be featured by the Copyright Alliance (opens in new tab) in their "Creators Across America" campaign — all experiences that connected my design work to causes and communities I care about.
I'm continuing to grow my practice through coursework at the Interaction Design Foundation (IxDF), focused on interaction design, UX research, and design systems.
Let's Create Together
I believe the best work happens when passion meets purpose. If you're looking for a designer who brings heart, curiosity, and a whole lot of creative energy to your project, let's chat.
Contact
All fields marked with an asterisk (*) are required.
Social Media
Monthly social video production for HVAC clients across the Midwest — campaign-driven, illustrated, and
direct-response registers. Composed in Adobe Express using licensed Adobe Stock imagery and audio.
Mechanical Man — "Love Your Home, Love Our Deals" Video AdMechanical Man — "Love Your Home, Love Our Deals" Video Ad
Facebook spot for a $50-off heating tune-up offer — built around the 'Love Your Home, Love Our Deals' campaign line, with bold typography and mixed visual treatments catching the brand and the offer in one quick read.
Time: 12 seconds
Mechanical Man — "Time to Tune it Up!" Video AdMechanical Man — "Time to Tune it Up!" Video Ad
Facebook spot for a $50-off heating tune-up offer — illustrated cartoon styling and a soft, cheerful palette designed to land the offer in a friendly, storybook register rather than an urgent or promotional one.
Time: 13 seconds
Sun Heating and Cooling — "Don't Let Winter Win!" Video Ad
Facebook spot for a $49/month new Carrier furnace offer — built around the 'Don't Let Winter Win' campaign theme, with saturated color and price-led composition designed to deliver the financing offer at the moment homeowners feel winter most.
Time: 10 seconds