HELCIM
Building a cross-functional fintech design system framework to improve operational efficiency
Design operations
Design system
Brand design
WHEN I JOINED Helcim, a fintech startup, the company was growing from 30 to over 120+ employees in under a year. Design needs exploded across teams:
Product teams - needed scalable UI components and patterns
Web team - constantly evolving site map with changing design needs
Marketing teams - needed brand assets for campaigns, ads, social media, and events
Sales & partnerships - required branded pitch decks, product shots, and collateral to close deals
Internal team (CX, HR, and operations) - lacked structured materials
The original ask? Organize the company’s digital asset management (DAM) system.
The real problem? There was no scalable design structure.
Using the double diamond framework, this project was structured across four key phases:
Discover - Research and understanding the problem
Conducted qualitative research interviews with stakeholders to map out pain points
Audited Figma files, Air (DAM platform), and Asana workflows to assess existing inefficiencies and inconsistencies
Researched best practices from other organizations to benchmark effective design operations
Define - Identifying core challenges
Lack of a centralized source of truth for design, leading to confusion and inefficiencies
Design requests were unstructured, causing misalignment between stakeholders and design teams
Workflows across Figma, Air, and Asana were fragmented, making collaboration difficult
Design - Developing scalable solutions
Proposed a structured design system framework to unify design workflows and improve accessibility
Created a dynamic Asana intake form that auto-adapted based on request type (e.g., UI, marketing, video)
Reorganized the Figma workspace and upgraded to an Organization plan for better team collaboration
Validate - Implementation and adoption
Got help from IT to integrate a Chrome bookmark for instant access to the Asana request form
Presented the rollout plan at the monthly company-wide all-hands meeting, ensuring alignment
Tracked usage and measured reduction in ad-hoc requests, validating efficiency improvements
tl;dr
THE PROBLEM
Helcim was rapidly scaling, and design needs were fragmented:
No structured repository for design assets
No consistency across touchpoints
Design teams were overloaded
The original scope was to organize the company’s digital asset management system (DAM).
But qualitative research revealed that the real problem was bigger than asset organization.
MY APPROACH
Stakeholder research with qualitative interviews across teams
Systemic audit of existing design files and assets
Developed a design system framework with a core set of design principles and foundations to power all verticals
THE RESULT
Established a scalable design system that ensured every team used the same foundational brand and UI elements
Improved design consistency across Helcim's ecosystem, reducing rework and misaligned visuals
Enabled designers to focus on innovation, as the system provided the structure needed to streamline execution
01
Building a fintech's design system framework
Through qualitative research and a design audit, I uncovered the core issue: Design needed to function as a scalable, cross-functional system that served multiple verticals.
SOLUTION
Instead of just sorting assets, I built a design system framework that ensured design consistency across teams and platforms.
This is the proposed framework for the design system. A core library powers the rest of the branches. Branches are categorized based on the broad needs of the company.
The framework centered on three key ares:
Product - Standardized patterns and design components for Helcim's products
Marketing & Brand - A structured system for campaigns, outbound ads, and web content
Internal - Templates, pitch decks, and customer-facing documents for teams
By structuring design at a systems level, we ensured all teams operated within the same design language and created cohesion from lead generation to product experience.
02
Expanding Blizzard: the core foundation
The product design library, Blizzard, was expanded. Together with the rest of the design team we updated and expanded the color and text style, and added new components that serviced the internal and marketing arm of the organization.
Brand guidelines standardized typography, color, and UI tokens
New scalable components allowed teams to quickly access pre-approved assets
A consistent design language emerged, ensuring every touchpoint felt cohesive
With a structured system in place, teams could confidently build materials without needing to “reinvent the wheel” for every request.
Color styles and guidelines for usage.
Snapshot of the iconography section in the design system library.
Evolving the product icon illustrations to a modular style and using the new gradient palette. These new product icons add more dimension and context with a clearly identifiable brand flavor in the design.
Before and after we evolved the visual language. The first image shows the application to a landing page and the second image shows how the new design was applied to internal communication materials.
RODOLFO FERRO CASAGRANDE
HEAD OF DESIGN, Helcim
Working with Trace has been a delightful experience that made me grow as a leader.
If I had to point out at one of her strongest skills, that would definitely be the ability to look at a design piece, understand that something is off, and turn that vague feeling into an objective and actionable feedback.
This ability to effectively deliver feedback has brought a lot of value to the team output and increasing their work quality.
03
How the design system improved consistency across teams
Product impact:
Updated and centralized the core foundational tokens, components, and patterns, reducing inconsistencies and increasing speed in design production
Emergence of a dedicated design system team of designers and engineers to build and maintain the system across Figma and Storybook speeding up development
Marketing, brand & web impact:
Established a design delivery pipeline smoothing the intake and execution process and shortening delivery timelines
Unified outbound ads, social media, and event materials under the same visual language
Consistent user experience across all channels
Internal teams & Sales impact:
Sales teams could pull from pre-built pitch decks, reducing time spent customizing presentations
HR & operations teams had structured design assets for training materials
Applications of the system elements across product, marketing, and web.
04
The foundation for scalable design delivery
KEY TAKEAWAY
The design system wasn't just about visual consistency. It was the foundation for an operational pipeline.
Having a unified design language enabled us to tell our brand stories in a consistent voice, have an identifiable and owned brand experience from lead generation efforts all the way to the user experience in the product.
The next step was structuring how teams accessed and requested design.
This led to the creation of Helcim’s design delivery pipeline. Case study here!
And with a more organized system, it unlocked opportunities for designers to experiment and create experiences that brought delight and surprise for the users.
Applications of the system elements on the website with 3D animation and packaging design
05
What I learned
A design system isn’t just about design. It’s an operational strategy.
By moving beyond just organizing assets, we built a scalable, structured framework that unified Helcim’s brand.
Design consistency leads to design freedom.
With foundation elements in place, designers were able to focus on delighting users rather than fixing inconsistencies.
Cross-team buy-in makes adoption easier.
Through stakeholder interviews and education, teams understood why a structured design system mattered, making implementation seamless.
OUTCOME
Helcim’s design system scaled successfully, ensuring brand consistency while allowing teams to build with confidence.
DANNY JOSE
ILLUSTRATOR, Helcim
The thing that stands out most about Trace is her ability to quickly chop down projects into measurable tasks. She is extremely organized in the way she approaches all segments of life and that’s precisely why she is super efficient.
It was a pleasure working together with her at Helcim, while together, we crafted the illustration system for product and marketing.
SHOUTOUTS TO—
Rodolfo Ferro Casagrande - For being an awesome collaborator, a dedicated player/coach, and a design leader who stands by his team even when he has a fractured ankle and should have gone to urgent care right away.
Julianna Wang - For their passion and dedication in learning all things figma. And in their support in building out foundational pieces of the design system.
Max Parker and the rest of the design team - For bringing the framework full circle and for tending the growing design system into what is is now today.
