Designing a Scalable Illustration System for Product Storytelling
Created a cohesive illustration system of 30+ assets that simplified complex DevSecOps concepts and strengthened CloudBees’ brand storytelling across web, product, and campaigns.
Role: Graphic DesignerTools: Figma, Adobe SuiteYear: 2025Team: Graphic Designer, Marketing TeamOverview
Following the 3.0 rebrand, the team needed a unified illustration style to visualize complex software delivery concepts — from CI/CD pipelines to governance frameworks — in an approachable, on-brand way.
I led the creation of a reusable illustration system, establishing a consistent visual language that reflected the new brand identity and enhanced storytelling across multiple mediums.
Challenges
Visualize highly technical topics simply and engagingly.
Build a scalable system for use across web, product, decks, and campaigns.
Align every asset with the 3.0 brand palette, gradients, and stroke weights.
Collaborate closely with the Product Marketing (PMM) team to determine which elements from existing product screens were essential to communicate visually. This meant extracting the most technical and impactful aspects of the platform and transforming them into clear, accessible illustrations that supported storytelling and comprehension.
Ensure each visual is aligned with the evolving CloudBees 3.0 brand identity while remaining flexible enough to support future product launches and updates.
Process
Discovery: Conducted extensive research into existing illustration systems across leading SaaS and enterprise brands to understand stylistic trends, scalability, and visual storytelling techniques. Explored various illustration packages and stock systems as potential starting points, but ultimately decided to create a custom system from scratch to ensure full alignment with the CloudBees 3.0 identity.
Audit: Reviewed existing product and marketing visuals to uncover inconsistencies, redundancies, and opportunities for simplification across the brand system. Partnered closely with the PMM team to identify the most critical product features and workflows to visually highlight, ensuring alignment between design priorities and key business messaging.
Design Framework: Defined core rules for shape language, line style, color use, and gradient systems to maintain brand cohesion and visual clarity.
System Creation: Designed 30+ modular vector illustrations that distilled key product concepts into simple, digestible visuals — often reinterpreting complex dashboards and data flows into easy-to-grasp metaphors.
Cross-Team Collaboration: Worked with PMM, design, and UX teams to iterate and validate concepts, ensuring accuracy without losing visual simplicity.
Documentation & Delivery: Integrated the final library into shared Figma systems and created usage documentation to help internal teams and vendors maintain consistency across campaigns and web pages.
Outcomes
Delivered a unified illustration library used across product pages, campaigns, and presentations.
Strengthened CloudBees’ identity through clear, consistent visual storytelling.
Enabled marketing and product teams to build new visuals quickly while preserving brand alignment.
Takeaways
Building a scalable illustration system taught me how small creative decisions can create large-scale brand impact. I learned to think modularly — designing for flexibility, consistency, and long-term use — and to rely on collaboration and iteration. Partnering with PMM gave me a deeper appreciation for how storytelling, accuracy, and design come together to make technical content more human and approachable.