Freelance · Marketing & Brand Design · 2024
A Pre-Order Campaign With No Brief, No Guidelines, Three Weeks
GetUp is a health brand backed by Jason Derulo. They were relaunching their caffeinated Energy Bites and needed a pre-order pop-up fast. No copywriter, no brand guidelines. I was the only designer. Three weeks to Figma handoff.
The challenge: Derive the brand voice, write the copy, design the pop-up, and deliver a dev-ready Figma package in three weeks with minimal information.
Freelance- No brand guidelines provided
- No copywriter on the project
- High-visibility launch with celebrity backing
- Reverse-engineered the brand voice from existing social content
- Wrote and pressure-tested copy with Claude
- Delivered complete Figma package with all variants
- Shipped live and on time, brief to dev-ready handoff in three weeks
- Brand voice and copy built from scratch, no copywriter, no guidelines
- Mobile-first pop-up, responsive to desktop, every state annotated for dev
01 · Context
A celebrity-backed energy brand. Three weeks. A sparse brief.
GetUp is a health brand backed by Jason Derulo. Outdoor-meets-wellness, not hardcore fitness.
Design a pre-order pop-up for a caffeinated Energy Bites relaunch. Brief: vibes, not guidelines.
Three weeks from first contact to Figma handoff ready for dev.
I was the only designer. No design lead, no copywriter, no brand manager.
A pop-up has to land before someone decides to close it. So the layout stays ruthless: one product, one value prop, one CTA, and nothing competing for attention.
02 · My Role
Sole designer: copy, visual direction, and Figma handoff.
No design lead, no brand guidelines, no copywriter. I derived the visual direction from GetUp's existing social presence, wrote and tested the copy myself, and delivered a complete Figma package ready for dev in three weeks.
Brand Research
Reverse-engineered the brand voice from existing social and web content. Built a mood board to align on tone before touching Figma.
Copy Direction
Wrote and pressure-tested headline options. Used Claude to run multiple drafts fast. Final copy stayed short and plain. A pop-up isn't the place to get clever.
Visual Design
Designed the full pop-up with hero product image, clear value statement, and single CTA. Mobile-first, responsive to desktop.
Dev Handoff
Full Figma component with desktop and mobile variants, interaction states, and annotated notes on hover behavior and close action.
03 · The Brief
What they gave me. What I had to figure out.
04 · The Design
One product, one shot.
The whole pop-up is built around a single constraint: you get about one second before someone keeps reading or closes it. The product image is the hero. The headline does one job, make someone want to know more. The CTA is the only interactive element in the viewport.
Product image as hero
Full bleed product photography anchors the layout. No background patterns, no competing visuals. The Energy Bites packaging is the brand statement.
Color pulled from the product, not invented
With no brand guidelines, I sampled the palette straight from the packaging and GetUp's social presence, warm natural tones with a single high-energy accent. The point was for the pop-up to read as GetUp at a glance, not as a generic launch promo. Full-bleed photography only works if the surrounding color agrees with it.
Headline over subline
Punchy headline does the lifting. One short subline for context. No paragraph copy. People don't read pop-ups. They glance, then decide.
Single CTA, maximum contrast
One button, high contrast. I tested a handful of CTA labels for something that nudges without making anyone nervous. 'Pre-order now' beat every other variant.
Mobile-first scaling
Designed at 390px first, then scaled to 1280px desktop. Most pop-up traffic on a celebrity launch comes from social, which means mobile.
05 · Copy Process
How I wrote the campaign copy without a copywriter.
Locking down the brand voice before touching the product meant I always knew what 'wrong' sounded like. Every copy decision became faster because there was a filter to run it through. I'd do this first on every project now.
“Brand immersion first. Copy second. Never the other way around.”
Started by building a picture of the brand voice from every piece of existing GetUp content: website, Instagram, product photography. The voice read as: outdoors-meets-wellness, casual confidence, natural energy. Not performance. Not aggression.
Used Claude to draft a stack of headline options across different tones, then cut hard against the brand voice. The winning headline was short, active, and product-honest. No hype language that would feel off-brand for a health product.
| Draft | Headline | Status |
|---|---|---|
| v1 | Feel the energy. Pre-order now. | Cut: could be any brand. Nothing specific to GetUp or Energy Bites. |
| v2 | New drop. Caffeinated bites, real ingredients. | Cut: informational, not motivating. Reads like a press release. |
| v3 | Energy Bites are here. Grab yours early. | Closer: has urgency. But "Energy Bites are here" is circular. No reason to care. |
| v4 | Fuel your day. GetUp Energy Bites, pre-order now. | ✓ Selected: short, active, product-named, action-forward. Matches the brand voice. |
06 · Reflection
A sparse brief is a real-world condition, not an edge case.
Most projects don't come with complete brand guidelines and a fully staffed team. GetUp was a version of reality I'll work in often: high expectations, limited time, incomplete information.
The lesson wasn't how to work fast. It was how to make defensible decisions fast, without waiting for clarity that isn't coming.
I'd push for at least a 48-hour review window with the client on copy before Figma handoff. We moved fast enough that the copy and the visual went out together, which worked, but meant any copy change would have required reopening the design file. Separating copy sign-off from design sign-off is a small process change that prevents a painful late-stage rework.