Kasia Galla - Brand Strategy

Principles

Select Work

Founded by a small group of industry iconoclasts in California in 1993, Mountain Hardwear gained credibility and praise from outdoor enthusiasts. But the brand had fallen into familiar category tropes and it wasn’t standing out or amplifying its core strengths and points of difference.

This was an opportunity to reinvigorate the brand with its innate rebellious spirit—which unlocked MHW’s unique point of view on the outdoors.

“We’re old enough to know better, but young enough to do it anyway”

Mode

Mode sought to expand its audience reach beyond data analysts and into a wider enterprise market.

The new brand positioning needed to capture its optimism for a new kind of business intelligence: data that’s easy, fast and actionable.

The tone and behavior of the new identity system embodies how the Mode works and what it enables customers to do: changing perspectives, adapting to new information, in short, shift modes.

Let’s shift our thinking.

Rhode Island School of Design
RISD

RISD was a 145 year-old institution that had entered a period of transformation in 2020. This meant deep structural commitments to evolve and open up—to new voices, new disciplines and new faculty.

The brand challenge was to create unity across the school without imposing uniformity. This required an intentional process, designed to ensure deep, continuous engagement with the entire RISD community, including students, faculty, administration and partners.

Question to Create,
Create to Question

Philadelphia Museum of Art

The Philadelphia Museum of Art was transforming to be more collaborative, more engaging, more expansive, and more future-focused.

As a Philly institution, it wanted to embrace the city’s independent spirit, and put Philadelphia front and center. The new brand honors the museum’s past and forges new paths.

Made you look 👀

Practice

kasiagallabarrett@gmail.com
LinkedIn

Kasia Galla helps organizations articulate who they are, what they stand for and how they show up in culture.

A brand strategist, consultant and writer for over a decade, she has shaped brands of all sizes and across industries, including apparel, beauty, tech, media, sports and the arts.

Her work is driven by the belief that the best brands emerge at the intersection of strategy, language and design. She collaborates closely with creative and leadership teams, connecting business objectives with ideas that inspire how brands show up—from websites and apps to OOH, retail and headquarters.

In addition to building brands, Kasia builds teams, processes and frameworks that strengthen collaboration across disciplines and deepen confidence in the brand practice.

Capabilities

Insight & Direction:
Category Analysis
Stakeholder Interviews
Primary Research
Mission / Purpose
Positioning
Values

Expression & Experience:
Naming
Personality / Tone of Voice
Verbal Systems
Messaging Frameworks
Creative Concepts
Design Translation

Systems & Structure:
Brand Architecture
Portfolio Taxonomy
Guidelines

Teams & Business:
Strategy Team Design
Process Development
Strategy–Creative Integration
Scoping & Engagement Design

Clients

Afterpay
Apple
Barron’s
Brex
CBS
Cline
Cosmos
Curology
Fireworks
GitHub
LOVB
Mode
MoMA
Mountain Hardwear
NBA
Nike
NYCFC
Peacock
Philadelphia Museum of Art
prAna
ProPublica
Rhode Island School of Design (RISD)
Spectrum
The Athletic
The New York Times

Awards

Silver Cube ADC103
Mountain Hardwear

Bronze Cube ADC102
Mode

Experience

Freelance Strategy Director
2026-

Gretel
Head of Strategy
2019-2026

clarkmcdowall
Senior Strategist
2018-2019

sparks&honey
Cultural Strategist
2016-2018

Last Updated 24.10.31

Finding what’s True

Strategy feels authentic when it’s rooted in what’s true—to internal teams and the audience, in the category and in culture. I like to start by listening for the whys and hows before filtering and prioritizing the most relevant and exciting ideas into brand positioning and concepts.

Words that Stick

Words and frameworks offer powerful shorthands when articulated in a way that’s clear and memorable. Strategy is impactful when it serves as a decision-making filter for entire organizations and when it’s something teams can deliver on day-to-day.

A Voice with Purpose

The relationships between brand and audience, and between the audience and the product, shape the story we tell and the perspective we take. I start by defining the role the brand wants to play in its audience’s lives. From there, tone and language naturally follow.

Brand as a System

Strategy doesn’t work in isolation. It’s one of several elements that tell a cohesive brand story together. I approach strategy as the foundation of a living system, constantly looking for opportunities to partner with creative teams and connect audience experience with signature brand behaviors.