The Process behind the Project | the CES-US Proposal Engine Graphics Library
An ode to one of the most impactful projects during my corporate past life...
By the way, if you’re interested in seeing the visual journey, here’s what I was able to keep and publish on my portfolio earlier this year. It’s a more polished version of what you’ll see below. To get to the project here, jump to the Problem Statement →
So much happened during the timeline of this project.
According to the lore, this project was initially started before my former company spun-off from it’s former tech giant papa.
A company I know and love, and well, we can all thank them for giving us one of the main plot devices in Hidden Figures as they invented the world’s first computer.
Hey there Watson :)
When I was onboarding as a tech designer in February 2022, only a couple of months after my former company was founded, I remember being told that there was a project that was talked about pre-spinoff.
A project that felt like a bit of a secret, so I was intrigued, but due to our very small team, we had to wait till we had some more helping hands to get the project off the ground.
Months went by, and it was time to start planning for the company’s first ever internship program. Due to us being in a startup, everyone in my team was hands-on in creating not only the coursework, but the experiences for our summer interns, either in person or remotely.
I remember creating a guide for the interns, on one side, they could find a diverse variety of awesome food spots all around Austin. The other side was filled with different local activities and experiences the interns could partake in.
I honestly don’t know what happened to the guide, if it was used or not, but this expereince taught me A LOT about using travel services, using travel apps, letting travel concierge take care of your own travel schedule, bookings for others, and finding cool things that only locals know when you’re in a new environment (shout out to my first manager for putting me on to Viator).
When the interns arrived in Austin, we were all so excited!
I mean, we were excited in general as we were a fresh tech startup, but when we got to invite our interns in and build awesome relationships with them, it was magical.
Especially for me, as I was literally just a marketing intern a week before I started in February. It felt like I was passing the torch to the next generation, even though we were like a year apart.
Once the internship was over and we hired the interns who were the best fit, everything calmed. We were finally able to hear more about this secret library project.
From the initial team call after summer 2022, where we discussed what the project is and what it entails, we decided to keep it as a back burner activity.
Meaning we agreed on this as it was somewhat of a volunteer activity, and our day jobs of supporting different sales teams would always come first. Also, it had taken nearly a year to get this project off the ground from the startup’s founding. It was understood that this would be volunteer work and that this project may take a while to get the final deliverable.
Between scoring our teams’ first big multimillion-dollar wins, we would regroup every few months or so to see where we were. As time went by, it did seem that we all got caught up and put the project on the back burner. But one day during one of our Design Team Ideation sessions, someone brought it back up, we decided to put our heads down and get this project going again. I believe this was once again, after the internship, but this time around September 2023.
And if you know my personal timeline from this story, you know what was happening on my end at this point. Thinking I was doing great. I realized that I was demoted without fully understanding what that meant. Asking for a promotion, as I knew I could handle it, but then being denied. The rest you can find out in the video below.
And to be completely honest, I can’t remember when one of our former interns volunteered to lead the project, after their first internship or after the internship of 2023.
But I do remember when we decided to meet again and collaborated to set a team gameplan in motion, at the end of the summer internship of 2023.
Once again, because its been about 2 years, I forgot what were my roles in their entirety, but I do remember conducting user research, user interviews, along with collabing with my teammates to edit the files within the project, uploading the new files, renaming them with their updated codes attached, conducting user testing of our project, and eventually creating the announcement video for our team’s final deliverable - the CES US Proposal Engine Graphics Library.
I’ll paste some polished content from my portfolio below:
The CES-US Proposal Engine Graphics Library was an internal tool created to streamline access to branded visual assets for employees across Kyndryl. Built on Microsoft SharePoint, the library housed over 500 redesigned and categorized graphics tailored for use in presentations, proposals, and RFPs. This project not only highlighted my expertise in product design, but also allowed me to apply brand design principles by revamping IBM's GCS, NewCo, and Early-Kyndryl legacy graphics to align with Kyndryl’s current (2024) visual identity.
To ensure the library met real user needs, I conducted extensive user research and testing, gathering feedback through interviews and iterative design sessions. The project showcased my web/UI design skills, as I cocreated an intuitive and visually cohesive interface on SharePoint. Additionally, I demonstrated information architecture capabilities by aiding in the development of our team’s unique coding system to organize and streamline access to over 500 graphics on the final site.
As the project came to an end, I created a motion graphics announcement video to promote the library’s launch, leveraging visual storytelling, and Kyndryl branded MOGRT files to drive engagement and excitement among employees. Throughout the project, I honed my collaboration and team leadership skills, working closely with my team to overcome challenges, brainstorm solutions, and iterate designs.
Project Overview
12 months
UX/UI Design
Teamwork and Leadership
The Problem:
Our teams needed support in making sure that they were delivering and presenting data visualizations, stats, graphics, and brand assets that reflected the timelines they needed, whether it was from a year ago or from the most recent annual report. We all had access to our marketing department’s brand assets, but not everyone had access to the most correct figures and graphics.
So, what did we do exactly?
Research and Discovery
Conducted interviews with employees to understand their needs, pain points, and desired features.
Audited existing graphics, identifying redundancies, outdated designs, and assets still using IBM branding.
Design and Development
Redesigned over 500 graphics, ensuring alignment with Kyndryl’s brand guidelines.
Created two versions of each graphic: one optimized for letter-size documents and another for PowerPoint presentations.
Developed a unique coding system for each graphic, making them easy to search and organize.
We used our limited resources as creative fuel - teaching ourselves Microsoft SharePoint and building a branded, visually pleasing, user-friendly, and accessible site.
Testing and Iteration
Conducted user testing sessions to gather feedback on the site’s layout, functionality, and ease of use.
Made iterative improvements based on user feedback, ensuring the library met employee needs effectively.
Adapted to roadblocks in design and iteration by employing versatile solutions, such as experimenting with new layouts, rethinking navigation structures, and seeking input from cross-functional teams to overcome challenges.
The Launch and Outcomes:
During the spring of 2024, we finally rolled out the CES US Proposal Engine Graphics Library to our organization using the newly live site and the announcement video I created.
Heres a quick rundown of the outcomes:
The library received widespread praise and user engagement from Kyndryl US employees for its intuitive design, effectiveness and usability after successfully implementing user testing and feedback.
Inspired scalable global impact (e.g., Kyndryl Canada, France, and Australia) to adopt and localize the library concept for their regions.
Building a unified repository of over 500 graphics, ensuring all internal and client-facing materials aligned with Kyndryl’s visual identity.
Establishing a scalable model for future internal tools and graphics repositories within Kyndryl.
The Key Takeaways
Scalable Design Solutions: This project demonstrated the importance of designing with scalability and adaptability in mind, ensuring the library could inspire similar initiatives globally and remain easily updatable.
User-Centered Approach: Conducting research and incorporating user feedback throughout the process ensured the final product met real-world needs.
Collaboration & Leadership: As the first hire on the team, I contributed to fostering a collaborative environment that aided in driving the team’s trust and support, leading to the project’s success.
Technical Growth: Learning Microsoft SharePoint and applying it to build a functional and branded tool expanded my technical skill set and problem-solving abilities.
Versatility in Problem-Solving: Our team’s ability to adapt to roadblocks during the design and iteration phases—whether by rethinking workflows, testing alternative solutions, or collaborating across departments—proved critical to the project’s success.
We launched this project in our organization with the intention that all the company’s employees can access and use the site along with its files.
Our goal was to create something for our SME’s, our Proposal Managers, our Sales Leads, but also for everyone who needed access to the US stats, data visualizations, and other figures.
And we were surprised by how fast word of our library spread, not just in the States but all over the world. From Costa Rica, to Australia, to Canada, it was awesome to get the feedback and validation that the work we all did, the time it took for us to do this thing right—really showed in our final product.
I’m grateful to have worked with my team, people who were our interns who became close colleagues.
We built so much, from my early days in 2022 to spring 2024. On a personal note, I went through a lot too, but never gave up.
From being hired on, building connections with our interns, and getting multimillion-dollar wins. To being unknowingly demoted, visiting a loved family member who would eventually fall ill and pass on, to my apartment flooding and being displaced right before our launch, all while the timelines and deadlines of the project, along with client work, seemed to be thrown at me.
And I can’t lie, a few people I worked with still decided to use these experiences against me, some people I had trusted and thought understood where I was coming from when I suddenly had to take space to grieve, when my mind couldn’t be on work-mode, or when I was sick.
So much happened, and this strangely became an ode and metaphor to my former corporate experience. In June 2024, my team and I received the notice that we’d be laid off.
Honestly, we didn’t know what would come next.
We don’t know if this project, our effort, was still validated when we left. If our work was forgotten, as the next new shiny thing was bound to roll in after the company restructuring.
If anyone would remember us.
As young designers, we put so much into learning, adapting, and growing, to get not much in return, and that part sucked.
For many of us, this was our first job, and we were told and expected to have job and financial security here for years to come.
Instead, we were given some resume resources to work with, a severance pay agreement, and expiration dates as to when our insurance would run out.
Not to mention, I was grieving the sudden passing of my beloved pup, my spring annual review status of “still not doing enough” to get a promotion, dealing with my former apartment after the winter’s freak flood incident and displacement, and on top of that I was in the process of moving out after deciding my former home was no longer aligned and carried too much dense energy from these experiences.
So when I had my meeting with my former boss on June 11th 2024, I wouldn’t have expected it to be about being laid off, but it was.
My team and I only had till July 12th to get our things in order.
July 31st was my final move-out date.
So yes, that was a tight timeline with a lot of twists and turns while gathering emotional baggage along the way - thank goodness for emotional regulation tools.
And tbh I did not expect to dive into this but like I said, this is all tied together.
This project timeline, my personal timeline, and my former corporate timeline. They blended together, and it’s why I sat down on June 18th 2024 to film this video, not knowing what was gonna come next but thinking why not attempt to have some fun with this chaos.
As I’m reflecting, I’m seeing that this project taught me about true collaboration, aligned relationships, vulnerability, and resilience.
And now, as I sit here writing a year later on June 18th, 2025, I’ve found myself breaking down crying several times and coming back to continue writing as this story deserves to be told. And this process is not only full circle, but it’s a full circle healing.
I’m so proud of what we did as a team, and how far I’ve come from my first day in 2022, to my layoff in 2024, to today as I’m officially celebrating my first year in business today and on Juneteenth, as that's when I received my email confirmations for my LLC award.
Now that’s what’s up. 🥳
i was an intern and was always in awe of y’alls work! so happy to see you on to bigger and better things🫶🏼