Scaling Corporate Platform
Building content pathways and a scalable newsroom to give users a reason to return and the internal team the tools to keep it fresh.
Process & Approach
The design system was built to hold two things simultaneously: the structural logic needed for a scalable CMS and the brand personality needed to make content feel worth returning to. Layout structure, grid logic, colour language, iconography, editorial modules and responsive behaviour were all defined as a system, not as individual design decisions. The newsroom tagging structure visible here became the backbone of the CMS handoff.
One thing I took from this project is that branded assets and design systems can’t be treated as two separate tracks. If assets are created without thinking about the system, the system bends until it breaks. If the system ignores how assets tell an emotional story, the brand ends up flat. Both sides need to be deliberate and built with each other in mind. That balance is what creates a system that feels consistent and expressive rather than constrained or chaotic.
industry
Enterprise
timeframe
6 months
team
Design lead · content strategist · Jr. designers · client engineering team
skills & tools
Product design · content architecture · information architecture · design systems · CMS design · Figma
The searchable newsroom with content tagging across Policy, Leadership, Social Impact, Biodiversity and Product, giving users a clear pathway into content and a reason to return.
Editorial template showing how patient stories were structured to communicate Viatris's mission through human content rather than corporate messaging.
The newsroom with searchable content and category tags across Policy, Leadership, Social Impact, Biodiversity and Product, giving users a fast path to the content most relevant to them.
The responsive article template in action, showing how pull quotes, video modules, audio and related content sections were built into the structure to keep users in the content and moving through the site.
What Shipped
Searchable newsroom with category tagging across five content areas giving users a fast path to relevant content
Responsive article templates with pull quotes, video, audio and related content modules built into the system
Design system built around the existing visual language with reusable modules for every content type
CMS structure and tagging system handed off to the internal team for ongoing publishing without agency support
What I'd do differently
Instrument the site with analytics from day one to measure whether the newsroom was actually driving return visits
Run user testing on the content tagging structure before build to validate that the categories matched how users actually think about the content
Push for a content governance plan alongside the CMS handoff so the internal team had clear ownership of what gets published and when
Build the design system with scalability to other Viatris markets in mind from the start rather than treating it as a single market solution
