Peter Arnell Takes Top Brand Role at National Design Studio

Designer Peter Arnell is joining the U.S. National Design Studio (NDS) as the inaugural U.S. chief brand architect, the studio’s Chief Design Officer Joe Gebbia announced Monday.  

Gebbia, co-founder of Airbnb, announced Arnell’s new role during the Wall Street Journal’s Future of Everything event in New York City, describing Arnell’s work as something that “has stewarded brands, and identities, and graphic design for four decades at the highest levels of levels of culture.” 

According to his bio for the Harry Walker Agency, Arnell has done brand and campaign work for Chrysler, Pepsi-Cola, Reebok, Donna Karan, Unilever, DKNY, and Fontainebleau. He also served as the chief innovation officer for Chrysler and The Home Depot. 

While Arnell’s work spans photography, digital interfaces, and physical products, he said his ultimate goal is to ensure that government websites have a “unified look, and feel, and experience.” He said this will help “build trust in the way that the American citizen … interacts with the government.” 

Arnell also made it clear that while he is taking on the role of chief brand architect, the “United States of America is the greatest brand in the world … we’re not rebranding this country.” 

President Donald Trump created the NDS as a White House component in August 2025 to overhaul the federal government’s approximately 27,000 websites and digital services. As chief design officer, Gebbia was tasked with recruiting top private-sector designers and developing innovative solutions to facilitate design improvements across the government.  

“We have an incredibly proficient technical team of some of the best software engineers I’ve ever worked with in my career,” Gebbia said about the studio’s work so far.  

“I was able to pull in some of the best talents from Silicon Valley, across design, across software engineering,” he added.  

Arnell is coming to the NDS team from his current full-time role as CEO of his company Intellectual Capital Investments, which is a multidisciplinary design firm that he founded in 2012.