Photos by Trent Whiting
In 2025, I joined a local firearms retailer as the head of design in a newly established creative marketing team. Our goal was to develop and grow the brand’s identity. We worked to segment our target customer groups and communicate a clear value proposition to each.
Our research, collaboration and experimenting across email, website, and social media channels led us to a consistent, flexible creative direction. We generally used rough, gritty textures juxtaposed by simple, clean photos. This spoke to both our blue collar, hands-on gun owners, and to the high quality products we offer.
A vital step to success was to build an efficient workflow through style guides, design templates, a robust, organized DAM library, and a reworking of our creative request and review funnel. With these things fine tuned, we freed up large portions of time to explore new areas for creative input. This included developing merch, laser engraved parts, branded build lines, and product giveaways. It also led to more collaboration with our web dev and e-commerce teams to improve our UX/UI functionality.
The quality of creative from Delta Team Tactical and it’s sister brands Davidson Defense Manufacturing, and MMC Armory, has been vastly improved. Not only generating more clicks, leads, followers and revenue; but increasing our teamwork and breadth of projects, leading to a more productive and enthusiastic work culture in our department. The hope is that during our tenure, we can help ensure that effective creative marketing is celebrated and continued long after we leave the company.
Photos by Trent Whiting
