Mustache — Social Media 2020–2022

Social media 2022

Case study

Case Study — Mustache Social Media · Art Assistant · 2020–2022

One agency, a diverse portfolio: from physical retail to B2B, from youth brands to institutional tone. I produced pieces for multiple clients simultaneously — each with an established identity and its own voice.

Period

2020–2022 — pre-generative AI

Role

Art Assistant

Portfolio

Retail, B2B, institutional

Workflow

Manual photomontage, Photoshop

01 — What It Demanded

Disappear so that each client appears in its own voice.

A social media agency designer doesn't have creative direction to defend. They have the opposite. Each client had its own palette, its own typography, its own repertoire of elements, its own visual tone of voice — and the job was to operate within each of these rules without mixing them up.

The daily question wasn't "what would my solution be?" — it was "what decision would this brand make?"

In volume, this means switching between identities several times a day: on the same morning, a serious post for a B2B client, a relaxed carousel for a retail product, and a promotional ad for a third brand in a third tone. Consistency didn't come from my style — it came from each of their styles.

02 — Learnings

The period that refined the fundamentals I use to this day.

Three specific skills that this work built:

A·01

Quick identity reading

Receiving a new brand manual and, within a few pieces, producing fluently in it — without a piece looking "made by another designer".

A·02

Variation within rules

Dozens of posts for the same client without looking repetitive, keeping the identity intact. Finding freedom within the constraints.

A·03

Volume under deadline

An editorial schedule doesn't ask for another week. Delivering consistently under constant pressure changes your relationship with any deadline from then on.

03 — The Context of the Time

Every piece was built.
Not generated.

These pieces were made between 2020 and 2022, before the popularization of generative AI tools. The workflow was different: stock image banks (Shutterstock, Unsplash, Adobe Stock), Photoshop as the main tool, manual composition of each element, retouching, cutting, light adjustment.

It's not an argument for nostalgia — it's an argument for foundation. Manual photomontage teaches about light, perspective, visual hierarchy, and attention to detail in a way that prompts cannot yet replace. Designers trained in this period carry a visual intuition that remains useful today, even with newer tools.

04 — The Function of This Case

The other half of the craft.

The other projects in this portfolio show conceptual direction in projects with tightly bound scopes. This one shows adaptability, volume, and visual discipline.

Art direction is built on top of these fundamentals.
Not in place of them.