Playbook

I partnered closely with Playbook’s founding team during a six-month contract to establish the company’s early visual and interaction foundations. The work focused on defining a flexible design system that could support both product development and early brand expression as the product and company shaped their identity.

IMPACT

Defined a core design system spanning typography, color, layout, and component behavior Applied system foundations across product UI, marketing surfaces, and investor-facing materials Established a scalable visual foundation the company continued to build on as it matured

Timeline

6 months (Aug - Dec 2020)

ROLE

Product designer

COLLABORATORS

Alkarim Lalani

CEO

Blaise Bradley

CTO

OVERVIEW

Building early foundations for credibility

Playbook (now Rollout) was an early-stage startup focused on workflow automation, coming off a recent round of VC funding. The team needed visual assets that could clearly represent the company to shareholders, while also establishing a visual foundation that wouldn’t need rework as the company matured.

My focus was on defining the core design system early, and using early brand and marketing work to ensure those foundations could support a company with a rapidly evolving product still defining its voice and direction.

Playbook website

Weekly digest email

With the product and brand still evolving, the system needed to be flexible without becoming vague.

I focused on defining a small set of structural decisions — typography, color, and component behavior — that could support both marketing surfaces and product UI without fragmenting as new use cases emerged.

System foundations

Component behavior

Validating the system through real use

Once the foundations were in place, the system was used across both product and marketing to validate that it could support real content, real workflows, and evolving requirements.

Templates, dashboards, and pitch decks surfaced different constraints, but relied on the same underlying structure. Using the system in active workflows helped identify where flexibility was needed in the product — without compromising consistency or introducing one-off solutions.

MVP, Templates

Pitch deck

Setting the system up to scale

As Playbook was still early in shaping its identity, the system was designed to be intentionally constrained — favoring clear structure over exhaustive coverage.

By establishing a small, flexible set of foundations and validating them through real use, the team was able to grow the product and brand without revisiting core design decisions. This approach reduced rework, supported new surfaces as they emerged, and gave the company a visual system it could confidently build on.

System-level view of workflows

Playbook

OVERVIEW

Building early foundations for credibility

With the product and brand still evolving, the system needed to be flexible without becoming vague.

Validating the system through real use

Setting the system up to scale

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