Creative Repute partnered with Dr. Kimberly McGlonn and the Build It Boldly team to design and produce The Leader’s Work, a reflective leadership workbook created as a companion piece to Dr. Kimberly’s book Build It Boldly. What began as a cover design engagement evolved into a much larger creative collaboration that included editorial design, interior formatting, print production support, and branded apparel concepts tied to the workbook launch and surrounding events.
About the Organization
Dr. Kimberly McGlonn is an author, speaker, educator, and social impact leader whose work centers around equity, leadership, reflection, and intentional living. Through Build It Boldly, Dr. Kimberly creates educational and storytelling experiences designed to help people reconnect with purpose and lead with greater awareness and courage. The Leader’s Work was developed as an interactive extension of those ideas, giving readers a guided space to journal, reflect, and actively engage with the themes introduced in Build It Boldly.
About the Project
Creative Repute was initially brought on to design the workbook cover art while drawing inspiration from the existing Build It Boldly visual identity. Early discussions focused on creating something that felt visually connected to the original book while still establishing its own artistic language and presence. Over time, the engagement expanded into the formatting and design of nearly 400 interior pages that included affirmations, pillar pages, writing prompts, stream-of-consciousness sections, quarterly reflections, and guided leadership exercises.
The creative direction evolved significantly throughout the process. Initial concepts explored geometric and mid-century inspired compositions before transitioning into a more symbolic visual language centered around movement, stillness, reflection, and personal journey. Through ongoing collaboration with the Build It Boldly team, the final aesthetic leaned heavily into expressive line work, typography, intentional spacing, and a refined color system rooted in the brand’s purple, red, green, and cream palette.
In addition to the workbook itself, Creative Repute also explored supporting branded merchandise concepts connected to the launch of The Leader’s Work. This included apparel explorations such as branded t-shirts designed to visually extend the workbook identity into physical event and community spaces. The goal was to create wearable pieces that felt aligned with the thoughtful, reflective tone of the publication while remaining modern, minimal, and rooted in the Build It Boldly visual language.
Our Approach
Creative Repute approached the project as both a branding exercise and a large-scale editorial systems challenge. The workbook needed to feel emotionally intentional while also functioning cleanly across hundreds of printed pages. Every layout decision had to balance readability, pacing, whitespace, hierarchy, and production requirements without losing the warmth and humanity of the brand.
Throughout the collaboration, our team worked closely with Alyssa Ghilardi and Dr. Kimberly McGlonn to refine both the macro and micro details of the experience. We developed multiple cover explorations, interior page systems, typography structures, and reflection layouts before refining the final direction. The Build It Boldly team also introduced evolving brand elements during production, including the integration of the yarrow plant 
motif into affirmation pages and supporting visuals as a symbolic storytelling element connected to the future direction of the brand.
Because the workbook was intended to be physically used and written in repeatedly, significant attention was placed on usability and pacing. Prompt pages, planning sections, journaling layouts, and affirmations were refined over multiple rounds to ensure readers had space to breathe, write, and engage with the material naturally. Creative Repute also guided accessibility and print-readiness conversations around typography contrast, page flow, bleed areas, image quality, transparency issues, and spine-width calculations tied to Lulu’s publishing platform.
As production neared completion, Creative Repute continued supporting the project through final print troubleshooting and upload testing. Our team resolved issues related to transparency warnings, cover dimensions, bleed alignment, and file compatibility while preparing packaged Adobe Illustrator and InDesign source files for the client’s long-term ownership and flexibility.
The Outcome
The final result was a fully designed, professionally formatted workbook spanning approximately 390 pages that successfully moved into production and launch through Lulu’s publishing system. The workbook became the official version used for workshops, launch events, product photography, and community engagement tied to the Build It Boldly brand.
Beyond the printed piece itself, the project established a scalable visual system that could extend into future educational products, apparel, merchandise, workshops, and digital experiences. The t-shirt concepts and supporting branded visuals helped reinforce that The Leader’s Work was not simply a workbook, but part of a broader lifestyle and leadership-centered movement.
This collaboration reflects Creative Repute’s ability to guide projects beyond surface-level aesthetics into fully realized creative systems. From editorial structure and visual storytelling to print production and branded merchandise support, the project required strategic thinking, adaptability, and a strong collaborative process across many months of refinement and execution.
