Meet Rachel Gehrs

At Digital Yalo, the thoughtful and intentional work injected into our design work is a direct result of Rachel’s leadership. As Yalo’s VP, Creative Director, Rachel blends sharp strategic thinking with a deeply human approach to creativity, one rooted in curiosity, culture, and care for the people behind the work.

Leading Creativity, Day In and Day Out

In her role, Rachel oversees Yalo’s creative vision, guiding brand systems, visual identities, and campaign concepts from idea to execution. Day-to-day, that means collaborating closely with designers, strategists, and account teams to connect business goals to creative expression and make sure the work not only looks beautiful, but means something.

Work Inspired by Real-Life Design

One standout project Rachel loved working on was GenCap’s brand identity. Inspired by high-fashion influences (specifically Victoria Beckham’s ready-to-wear collections), the project was designed for an audience of affluent women, with a refined color palette and confident, modern sensibility. It’s a perfect example of how Rachel translates inspiration into strategy, creating work that’s aspirational yet grounded.

Creativity Rooted in Culture

Rachel’s creative philosophy is deeply shaped by her surroundings. Cleveland’s vibrant cultural scene with world-class museums and theater to major sports teams and incredible dining feeds her curiosity. A recent visit to the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Renaissance to Runway exhibition left a lasting impression, showcasing how centuries-old art can spark modern couture. That same idea, honoring the past while designing for what’s next, runs through Yalo’s work and values.

What the Team Knows Her For

Ask around, and you’ll hear a consistent theme: Rachel is a leader who trusts her team. She empowers people to do their best work without asking them to sacrifice what matters outside the office. She’s approachable, supportive, and relentless in advocating for her team, which is a rare quality. She’s someone who listens first and works hard to remove obstacles so creativity can thrive.

Life Beyond the Office

Outside of work, Rachel is all about family, fresh air, and staying active. Summers are spent outdoors with activities like gardening, playing catch, and tending to the family’s pandemic-era chicken project. She’s also often found at sporting events with her family, soaking in the energy of the city she loves.

She also just got a puppy, Arnie, named after Arnold Schwarzenegger. No joke. Rachel admires his ability to stay positive, reinvent himself, and accomplish wildly different things over a lifetime (she highly recommends the Netflix documentary!). It’s a mindset she carries into her own life and leadership.

Why Rachel’s Leadership Matters

At Yalo, creativity isn’t just about aesthetics, it’s about intention, trust, and impact. Rachel Gehrs embodies that belief every day, leading with vision, empathy, and an unwavering commitment to both the work and the people behind it.

By Brittany Lavy

Meet Melissa Ito: The 24/7 Creative

Digital Yalo hasn’t been the same since Associate Creative Director Melissa Ito joined our agency. She’s a creative powerhouse. When Melissa isn’t being creative at work or being a rockstar mom of 2, she can be found crafting landscapes and ecosystems within games such as Animal Crossing and Minecraft. She simply can not go a day without creating. 

An Invaluable Asset

Melissa is an expert at bringing creative concepts to life through digital media. She manages design workshops with clients, brainstorms UI concepts for projects, executes cohesive visuals across multiple channels and offers her wisdom and talents to anyone and everyone who needs her. 

Melissa has not only become a fundamental part of our team but an extremely valuable asset to our process. She has brought new practices to our agency that have helped our team and clients surpass their goals and expectations. 

Melissa’s Influence to Those Around Her 

One of Yalo’s values is to Amp it Up to 11, meaning we are always working to improve and deliver the absolute best work to our clients. Melissa embodies this approach fully. One phrase she uses that always rings true to me is “I think we can explore this more.” 

Melissa is constantly exploring ideas and concepts. When she’s not pushing boundaries herself, then she’s pushing her teammates to keep designing outside of the box. You think you’re done designing this section of the website? You’re not, keep exploring. This mindset has helped us push even further by throwing out the old and keep tip tapping away to a more impactful design. 

Melissa’s impact on our team is undeniable. Her dedication to exceptional UI solutions, combined with her boundless creativity, has elevated our work and strengthened our entire department. As a vital force within and beyond the UX/UI team, she continues to push boundaries, inspire innovation, and drive our success forward.

Get it? PDI? Pretty Darn Incredible?

A brand evolution has many moving parts. It’s more than just changing a look and feel, it’s the research and planning that goes into the initiative before any changes are made,  and the maintenance that goes into constantly reinforcing the new brand voice—plus everything in between. 

PDI Kitchen, Bath and Lighting is known in the plumbing and homebuilding industry for outstanding products and customer relationships. While they had a great reputation on the industry side of things, they were relatively unknown to the public. Enter: Yalo. 

When Yalo and PDI began their partnership, PDI had just renovated their public-facing showroom with a curated selection of high-end products and finishes. They also expanded their ecommerce offerings.  They needed a brand refresh to match these initiatives, breathing new life into the website’s look and feel and updating their communications. 

Yalo started where most brand refreshes start—with a new logo and visual identity system. We took their old logo and evolved it to reflect an elevated look and feel, while still alluding to their legacy logo in order to utilize brand equity built over 45 years. We also developed a brand architecture and corresponding identity system for use in acquisitions. 

Why do people renovate their home? What goes into deciding where to spend money and which styles to choose? When developing PDI’s advertising campaigns, we looked at the psychology behind home renovation, and used this mindset to develop fun yet elegant messaging, positioning PDI as a trusted, reliable source to bring their vision to life. 

We also created an elevated user experience on the PDI site, enhancing the user interface to reflect PDI’s premium positioning. 

Last but certainly not least (also, not technically last, since we continue to evolve the brand), we shot :30 and :15 commercials which spoke to the fun side of home renovation while still showcasing PDI’s offerings.  

THE CHALLENGE

IronCraft Attachments, formerly known as Titan Implements and Attachments, provides high quality farming and construction equipment on a global scale.  

The challenge was to create a new company name, logo, and supporting marketing assets (website, tradeshow collateral, et al) within 90 days of project start.  

THE YALO SOLUTION

Yalo went through its comprehensive discovery process then traveled to the corporate offices in southern Tennessee, working through its unique renaming and brand building process. The two-day onsite involved touring factories and whiteboard sessions in which we collectively arrived at a handful of new name candidates. Over the next few weeks, a new name was selected (IronCraft) and Yalo drove the logo creation, brand color creation and key messaging.  

From there, an on-location product photo shoot was needed to capture high-quality content for IronCraft’s brand rollout, producing marketing assets (sales sheets, catalogues, business collateral, social assets) and a Yalo-designed website.  

OUTSTANDING BRAND MARKETING RESULTS

• Created a cohesive look-and-feel across all brand touch points 
• Collaborated on strategy for communications launch of new brand  
• Expedited website design and development, helping build in their CMS environment 

Are you ready to bring your brand to life? Let Yalo create impactful, visual storytelling that drives results – we offer creative marketing & branding services that can transform a brand from ordinary to outstanding. Scroll to the bottom of this page and Contact Us to get a productive conversation started.