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

There was no single source of truth for design, meaning:

❗️

Teams outside of design didn’t know where to get what they needed

❗️

Designers wasted time handling one-off asset requests

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Inconsistent visuals weakened Helcim’s brand identity

The original ask?

Organize the company’s digital asset management (DAM) system.

The real problem?

There was no scalable design structure.

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

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.

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.

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 brand and UI consistency across teams and platforms.

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.

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.

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.

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

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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. A structured Asana ticketing system that ensured teams could easily request and track design work. (Case study to follow!)

And with a more organized system, it unlocked opportunities for designers to experiment and create experiences that brought delight and surprise for our 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.

For a deeper dive into the process, I'd be happy to walk it through in an interview. Let's connect!

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.

WHAT MY COLLEAGUES SAY

Trace's greatest strength is her ability to handle moving pieces within the project. With my short collaboration with her in one of the projects in the past, there was some inconsistency with what we usually do versus what she has done.

She effectively adapted to what we're doing and understood where the devs are coming from! It was greatly appreciated. I found that not only is she a big advocate for the design team but also for devs in terms of improvement and just making sure things are delivered on time and the handoff is complete.

WHAT MY COLLEAGUES SAY

Trace's greatest strength is her ability to handle moving pieces within the project. With my short collaboration with her in one of the projects in the past, there was some inconsistency with what we usually do versus what she has done.