When you think of IBM, you imagine a grandfather enterprise reserved for giant companies and an organization past its peak. Even though many would argue this isn't true, IBM's brand ethos and implementation needed some work to properly communicate otherwise.
Summary
Our task was to build the "Let's Create" landing page. We aimed to utilize motion and whitespace to visually communicate the limitless creativity companies can tap into when they partner with IBM. However, we had one major constraint: the Carbon Design System.
Carbon design's components were not inherently flexible to work with. Coupled by our stakeholders looking to push the boundaries of what is traditionally developed for IBM.com, we hit a lot of walls. However, by breaking down Carbon's molecules into atoms, we found fun ways to creatively manipulate the system. Where we landed was a page that felt fresh and familiar. Truly in Frankenstein fashion.
Conclusion
Beside being a good exercise for dissecting a robust design system, I learned a lot about stakeholder management and how to marry creativity with accessibility. Even when clients want to push for more motion and interactivity, UX must come first. Pushing boundaries should never be at the expense of usability.