The challenge
The Global Design team wanted colleagues across Colgate-Palmolive to understand how design contributed to the business — not only how products looked, but how they worked, connected and created value.
The answer could not be another internal deck with a short life and a long filename.
The team wanted something tangible and lasting: a publication substantial enough for design leaders, clear enough for colleagues in other disciplines and human enough that people might actually read it.
The approach
The company already had the stories. The harder part was finding the thread between them.
We interviewed teams across functions and geographies to uncover where design shaped product development, marketing, manufacturing and cross-functional collaboration. We then organized those examples into a larger narrative about the role design played across the business.
Our job was part journalist, part strategist: asking the questions that surfaced the real story, then translating design thinking into language that traveled easily between disciplines.
Each piece reinforced one central idea: design is not simply how something looks. It is how an idea becomes understandable, usable and real.
The outcome
The finished book became more than a showcase of completed work.
Teams used it to onboard new colleagues, explain design’s role in cross-functional projects and align around a more consistent way of talking about design. By grounding large ideas in specific examples and plain language, the book helped non-designers recognize where design already appeared in their work — and where it could contribute more.
It was built to outlast a launch. It did.
“As a writer, Colin was able to take complex and often not well understood (technical) areas, and synthesize them into relatable, relevant stories that connect with a general audience. He writes with clarity, bringing the right balance of credibility and emotion to his storytelling.”