Product Designer
I design systems and experiences
that make complex decisions
feel simple
Most of my ideas start in real life — usually while creating experiences for the people around me.
Selected work
Sociable
Plans that actually make it out of the group chat. A collaborative social planning app that replaces the endless back-and-forth between Maps, Yelp, and the group chat.
Reducing Choice Overload
Cutting through 20+ competing offers so shoppers can actually find what's relevant to them — not just scroll past it.
Building a Design System That Holds Under Pressure — Macy's
A component system built to stay consistent for users, whether the campaign behind it is Black Friday or a quiet Tuesday.
Wedding Identity & Experience Design
A design system applied to a real-world experience — the same principles of modularity, hierarchy, and scalability used to design a 3-day, 6-event South Indian wedding in Hyderabad across 13+ touchpoints and 400+ guests.
One Brand. A Lot of Worlds.
Macy's has a loyal, established customer base — and a real challenge alongside it: making campaigns across fashion, gifting, and toys feel more relatable to a younger audience, without losing what makes them recognizably Macy's.
Sociable
Plans that actually make it out of the group chat.
Every friend group knows this moment:
"I'm down for whatever."
Which usually means one person ends up planning everything — figuring out what everyone is actually not down for.
What should take 10 minutes turns into hours of back-and-forth, jumping between Google Maps, Yelp, TikTok, and Instagram.
And somehow... you still don't have a plan.
What makes group planning so hard?
Too many choices
Especially in cities, the options become overwhelming
The "vibe check" is real
Happy hour, dinner, drinks — it doesn't work for everyone
No one wants to take charge
So the same person ends up doing all the planning
Effort is uneven
The same person always ends up doing it
Group chat silence
No replies… until it's the wrong plan
Choice fatigue
Too many options with no clear way to narrow them down
"We talk about plans more than we actually make them." — Niki, 25
Interviews conducted
6
on group planning
Rely on one person to plan
83%
in their group chats
Switch apps per session
4+
during group planning
Said plans fall through
67%
due to no response in group chats
App
What it does well ✓
What it lacks ✗
Beli
Strong social recommendations
→ Not built for real-time group planning
Yelp
Huge database, reviews
→ Overwhelming and not collaborative
Google Maps
Navigation + discovery + AI search
→ No shared context or decision-making
These tools help you find places — but not decide together.
Apps per plan
3+
Decision making
10 min → 1+ hr
Plans for everyone
1 person
So I designed around this instead —
Make collaboration visible
Everyone should see what's happening — not just the planner.
Keep everything in one place
No switching between apps mid-plan.
Make participation easy
Tapping is faster than typing. Lower the barrier to reply.
Make planning feel fun
The process should feel just as enjoyable as the plan itself.
Putting pen to paper
Starting from scratch
Exploring how group planning could work. Ideas were loose, unstructured, and all over the place.
→ Needed to turn concepts into something usable
V1
Exploring structure
First pass at the core screens — figuring out where things should live and how people move through them. It started to take shape, but felt heavy and disconnected.
→ Needed clearer structure and hierarchy
V2
Defining the system
The app started to feel like itself — but the flow still felt more like a form than a conversation. The experience was rigid where it needed to be flexible.
→ Needed to feel more flexible and social
The final direction
Experience from "what should we do?" → to "see you there"
Brought everything together into a more cohesive experience — making planning feel faster, lighter, and more collaborative.
What makes this work
Group planning hub
→ Everything lives in one shared space
Collaborative decisions
→ Vote, react, and move plans forward
Interactive feed
→ Discover spots your group will like
Calendar integration
→ Find a time that actually works
Extending the experience beyond the app
Planning doesn't end once a plan is created — it only works if everyone actually responds.
Most tools assume everyone will download the app.
In reality, people just want to click a link and move on.
So I designed a lightweight browser-based flow for friends
to quickly weigh in — no friction, no commitment.
No more — "I'm down for whatever"
When the votes are in, the answer is obvious. No more chasing people up or re-reading a thread to figure out what everyone actually said.
How I'd validate this next
The frames are built, but untested with real prototype interaction. Here's how I'd close that gap before calling this done.
→ Turn key frames into a clickable Figma prototype and hand it to 3-5 friend groups planning a real outing
→ Watch for hesitation points — where people pause, re-read, or ask each other what a screen means
→ Test whether the voting mechanic actually resolves group indecision, or just adds a new decision to make
→ Confirm the no-download browser hand-off actually gets non-app users to respond, not just tolerate it
Where this could go next
Real-time collaboration
Right now it's async — the next version should feel live, like everyone's in the room together.
Scaling across group sizes
A dinner for four is very different from a birthday weekend for twelve. The system needs to flex.
Availability + reservations
Once you've picked a spot, you shouldn't have to leave the app to book it.
Notifications help prevent plans from stalling
Plans die in silence. A well-timed nudge keeps things moving.
Reducing Choice Overload at Scale
Star Deals Week — Macy's
When a homepage carries 20+ competing offers, how do you help someone find the one deal that's actually for them?
The problem
What this project needed to solve
Star Deals Week is one of Macy's most content-heavy campaigns — with multiple daily offers, changing promotions, and high visibility across the homepage.
The existing experience struggled to keep up. Content felt crowded, hard to scan, and difficult to navigate.
The goal was to create a system that could scale — without overwhelming the user.
The ask
In scope
Hero carousel, slideshow of top daily offers, and supporting offer cards — built to run across a discount period with rotating daily specials.
Out of scope
General merchandising carousels and monetization banners — existing, shared homepage components outside this project.
Usability testing existed on the research team's side, but results weren't shared with design — decisions here were shaped through direct stakeholder conversations and observed patterns from prior campaigns instead.
What else is out there
A quick look at how other high-SKU retailers handle high-volume sale periods — and what it confirmed or changed in this system.
Bloomingdale's
The pattern to adopt
A persistent, skinny ticker separates the always-on promo message from the hero — worth adopting to keep the hero focused on one dominant statement instead of competing with it.
Sephora
A pattern already validated in shipped work
A horizontal carousel with a visible scroll arrow keeps density controlled — the same pattern Macy's already uses, confirming System move 2's slideshow approach is a proven pattern, not a one-off choice.
Target
A cautionary example
Drops straight into a dense grid of small, competing tiles right below the hero — recreating the exact density problem this project was solving. Reinforced the decision to restrain content directly below the hero, not follow this approach.
Where things were breaking down
→ Too many promotions competed for attention
→ Weak hierarchy made it hard to scan quickly
→ Vertical stacking created long, fatiguing scrolls
→ Users lacked clarity on when deals were relevant
→ Key CTAs were easy to miss within dense layouts
Too many Star Deals priorities were stacked above the fold
Promotional overload made every deal feel equally urgent
Offers lacked a clear hierarchy — nothing signaled what to shop first
My role
I worked on the homepage campaign experience — figuring out how to make a page that changes daily, carries a huge amount of content, and needs to drive action actually feel manageable to shop.
I worked closely with content, marketing, and dev to make sure the patterns we landed on held up across the full campaign, not just a single moment.
Design approach
— Cut through the clutter — one clear thing at a time
— Make it obvious what matters most before anything else
— Design for someone giving it two seconds, not two minutes
— Build something that works whether there's one deal or twenty
— Stop burying the thing people actually need to click
The design
Evolving the system
System move 1
Condensed high-volume offers into scrollable systems
Instead of presenting everything at once, content was restructured into a more digestible format — users could quickly scan and engage without feeling overwhelmed.
→ Shoppers were scrolling past deals they actually wanted. This fixed that.
System move 2
Replacing long scrolls with structured slideshow modules
Vertical stacking was replaced with a slideshow-based approach, making it easier to browse multiple deals without excessive scrolling.
→ A more controlled, less fatiguing way to browse a lot of deals at once.
System move 3
Introduced temporal clarity through a calendar module
A calendar-based component helped users understand when deals were active — adding structure to an otherwise time-sensitive experience.
→ Star Deals runs for a week. People needed to know what was on today, not dig for it.
System move 4
Tested progressive disclosure for CTA clarity (A/B test)
Collaborated on a dropdown CTA variation to replace cluttered multi-CTA rows, preserving category access while reducing visible noise on mobile.
→ The dropdown variant won — fewer visible options on mobile meant people found the category they wanted faster, without losing access to the rest.
The final experience
Designed to feel clearer, more structured, and easier to navigate at scale.
Fewer competing signals, clearer priority — the homepage reads as one coherent system instead of a wall of offers.
Key design decisions
→ Prioritizing hierarchy over volume
→ Structuring content into modular systems
→ Designing for scannability first
→ Balancing visibility with simplicity
Impact
— More structured and scannable homepage experience
— Reduced visual clutter across campaign modules
— Improved clarity around promotions and timing
— No formal metrics were tracked for this project, but anecdotal feedback from stakeholders was positive following launch
Key learnings
— A single high-traffic week surfaced problems a normal week never would — stress-testing at real volume beats testing in theory
— Marketing and design don't always agree on which deal matters most; a slideshow format let both be right without forcing a fight over hierarchy
— The calendar module was the cheapest fix with the most noticeable impact — clarity beat polish here
If there were fewer constraints
Personalized deal ranking
Not everyone cares about the same 20 offers. With more time, ranking could respond to browsing behavior instead of showing the same order to everyone.
Faster A/B testing infrastructure
Every test took weeks to move through design and dev. Faster infrastructure would mean testing more variants, more often, closer to real campaign timing.
Tighter merchandising integration
Deal timing and inventory live in separate systems. Closer integration would let the page respond in real time as deals sell out or expire, instead of running on a fixed schedule.
Post-launch measurement built in
There was no lightweight way to see which modules actually drove engagement after a campaign shipped — just anecdote and the next campaign's brief.
Building a Design System That
Holds Under Pressure — Macy's
A component system built to stay consistent for users, whether the campaign behind it is Black Friday or a quiet Tuesday.
The problem
Designing for repeated use — not repeated effort
Promotional modules weren't built once — they were reused across multiple campaigns. From Black Friday to Valentine's to Clearance, each campaign introduced slight variations.
The challenge was building something flexible enough to flex, but structured enough to stay consistent.
The ask
In scope
A reusable template system for promotional and editorial homepage content — skinny promo banners, carousel/modular grids, and slideshow/hero modules — designed to support recurring seasonal campaigns without rebuilding from scratch each time.
Out of scope
Individual campaign creative direction and copywriting, backend/CMS implementation, and homepage areas outside the promotional template library — navigation, account, and footer.
No dedicated research team was assigned to this project — refinements were driven by real campaign performance and stakeholder feedback across repeated seasonal launches from 2023 to 2025, not upfront usability testing.
The pattern
Five different campaigns, one underlying system
Rather than a single brief, this was a recurring need across very different kinds of campaigns — high-urgency sales events like Black Friday, Easter, and Valentine's Day, as well as editorial, non-promotional content like Fall Fashion and Summer Favorites. Each had a different tone and purpose, but all needed the same underlying system: fast to launch, visually consistent, and buildable without starting from scratch.
Each row compares what was unique to that campaign against what stayed identical across all five — the surface changed, the underlying system didn't.
| Campaign | Type | What varied | What stayed constant |
|---|---|---|---|
| Black Friday | Promotional | High offer density, urgency-driven CTAs | Core template grid, CTA hierarchy |
| Easter Sale | Promotional | Softer visual tone, seasonal imagery | Same component library |
| Valentine's Day | Promotional | Lighter tone, fewer simultaneous offers | Same modular structure |
| Fall Fashion | Editorial | Lifestyle-led, no discount messaging | Same layout system, swapped content type |
| Summer Favorites | Editorial | Product-led storytelling, minimal urgency | Same responsive grid |
Where the system struggled
Templates varied across campaigns
No consistency from one campaign to the next
Reuse required manual adjustments
Every reuse meant starting a conversation about what needed to change
Layouts became dense under pressure
High-volume moments broke the visual structure we'd built
Hierarchy shifted by campaign
What was prominent one week disappeared the next
My role
I designed and refined the promotional templates — working within Macy's existing system, not around it. That meant every decision had to hold up across Black Friday, Valentine's Day, Easter, and everything in between.
Each campaign was essentially a live test of how well the templates were actually built.
Design approach
The goal wasn't to make a beautiful one-off layout — it was to build something the team could hand off, reuse, and trust. That meant designing for the edge cases, not just the ideal version.
Every pattern needed to work whether the headline was three words or twelve.
The design
Evolving the system
System move 1
One primary message. Everything else supports it.
The homepage shifted from dense, competing promotional blocks to a cleaner hero-led structure — one primary message first, with supporting offers organised more intentionally below.
→ A single focus point made it easier for shoppers to know where to start.
Before — Multiple offers competed for attention at once, making it harder to identify the most important message quickly.
After — A single primary campaign message led the page, while secondary offers moved into a cleaner supporting structure for easier browsing.
System move 2
Less on the page — but the page works harder.
The homepage evolved from crowded, box-heavy compositions into a cleaner modular system — larger imagery, fewer competing elements, and more intentional spacing.
→ Improved readability and reduced cognitive load in high-density layouts.
Before — Fragmented Offer Grid
Multiple boxed offers and competing messages created visual clutter, making the page feel dense and harder to scan quickly.
After — Cleaner Modular Storytelling
Larger content blocks, simplified layouts, and stronger spacing created a more premium browsing experience with clearer paths to shop.
System move 3
One system, three reusable formats.
Instead of one template stretched to cover every need, the system was built as a set of purpose-built, reusable formats — a compact banner for timely offers, a modular grid for browsing, and a slideshow for richer storytelling. Each campaign pulled from the same library instead of starting from scratch.
→ Three formats, one system — built to cover promotional, editorial, and browse-driven needs.
Skinny Promo Banner
A compact, reusable module designed to surface timely offers, campaign messages, or navigational links without interrupting the overall page flow.
Carousel / Modular Grid
A reusable browse-focused component that organized products, trends, or categories into a clean, scannable format that encouraged deeper engagement.
Slideshow / Hero Module
A flexible storytelling template that balanced promotional urgency with richer visual moments, allowing campaigns to scale from sales events to editorial launches.
System move 4
Continuous optimization through repeated campaign use.
Rather than treating templates as fixed outputs, repeated seasonal launches created opportunities to refine hierarchy, simplify layouts, and elevate the experience over time.
→ By 2025, hierarchy and spacing decisions were shaped by three years of real campaign evidence, not a single redesign moment.
Early Version (2023)
The initial framework prioritized promotional volume and category access, creating a functional but denser browsing experience.
Transitional Version (2024)
Layouts began shifting toward stronger imagery, cleaner spacing, and more intentional content groupings while maintaining promotional flexibility.
Current Version (2025)
The evolved system used clearer hierarchy, hero-led moments, and simplified supporting modules to create a more premium, scannable experience.
What this project taught me
Designing systems isn't just about structure — it's about how they hold up over time and repetition.
01
The struggles didn't show up in planning — they showed up mid-campaign, from One Day Sale to Winter Clearance, once real content hit the templates
02
Editorial content like Fall Fashion tested the system harder than promotional campaigns did — proving flexibility mattered as much as consistency
03
Three years of real seasonal launches taught the system more than any single campaign brief could have
The final experience
The same page, every campaign — just smarter each time.
Same components → less effort to build
Less effort to build → more time to refine
More predictable for users → more trust in the experience
Impact
— Consistent, scalable experience across campaigns
— Clearer promotional hierarchy across placements
— Reduced time spent rebuilding common patterns
Reflection
— The most durable work wasn't a layout — it was the logic behind it
— Real-world reuse exposed things planning never would
— A good system makes the next campaign easier, not the same
If there were fewer constraints
Dynamic templates by campaign type
Black Friday shouldn't behave like a normal week — the template should know the difference.
Clearer signposting for time-sensitive deals
When something expires today, that should feel urgent — not buried in the same layout as everything else.
Smarter content prioritisation
Surface what actually drives engagement instead of what's just newest.
Deeper personalisation layers
Make campaigns feel more relevant to the person seeing them, not just the campaign running.
Wedding Identity & Experience Design
A Design System
Applied to Real Life
I designed my own wedding using the same thinking I apply to product design — hierarchy, modularity, scalable components, reusable patterns. The medium was print and physical space. The output was a 3-day, 6-event, 400+ guest experience in Hyderabad, India. Every piece was part of one system.
The Challenge
A wedding is a product with a one-time launch.
6 events, 3 days, 400+ guests flying in from around the world — many attending their first Indian wedding, unfamiliar with South Indian tradition, who had never purchased Indian clothing. The problem wasn't just visual. It was informational, navigational, and deeply human. Somewhere in the planning, it clicked: this was the most meaningful design problem I'd ever been handed. And there was no iteration cycle. No second launch.
The brief, restated as a product problem
How do you build a system that works across 13+ touchpoints, scales from a 3-inch tag to a 4-foot board, holds across 6 different event contexts, and still feels personal without starting from scratch?
Multiple events, one identity
Mehendi, Haldi, Sangeet, and the wedding ceremony — each with its own tone, needing to feel part of a single cohesive world
Cross-cultural audience
Guests from multiple countries, cultural backgrounds, and varying degrees of familiarity with South Indian tradition
No room for iteration
Unlike product design, there's one shot — the day is fixed, the invitations go out, the signage goes up
Scale without repetition
Invitations, signage, wardrobe guides, programs, menus, social assets — everything must cohere without feeling templated
Section 2 — The Component System
Building the component library
I wanted the typography, illustrations, and design language to become recognisable enough that when guests saw them, they immediately thought of our wedding — my wedding. Not just a pretty invitation — a visual system with enough internal logic that it could scale across dozens of touchpoints and still feel intentional.
Events designed
6
Pellikuthuru to After-Party
Custom illustrations
20+
hand-crafted icons & motifs
Touchpoints
13+
print, digital, interactive
Vendors curated
14
shipping to US & internationally
The components
Type system — three voices
Editorial serif for event titles. Script for "Attire" and subordinate labels. All-caps sans for functional information. Each voice has a role; none are interchangeable.
Colour system — base tokens + event extensions
Botanical green, marigold, parchment as the root palette. Each of the 6 events inherits from the same anchors but with its own dominant tone — exactly how a themed design system works.
Logo — one integrated mark
Palm trunk running through the A&N ampersand. Reduces from a 4-foot backdrop to a 5mm wax seal without modification. Designed to be placed, not resized.
Arch — the layout grid
The scalloped Mughal arch acts as the structural frame for every output — invitation spreads, welcome boards, and even the die-cut shape of the hamper tag. One component, used at every scale.
Section 3 — The Asset Library
Custom assets, built to be reused
The invitation suite is a 6-event booklet — each spread a completely different world, but all held together by a single structural device: a scalloped Mughal arch that frames every event's information. The arch is the constant. Everything around it changes — background colour, illustration set, palette — event by event.
The arch went further than a graphic motif. The hamper tag given to every guest was die-cut into the arch silhouette — the shape of the design system became the physical shape of the object. 400+ guests received a tag that was, structurally, the same form as every invitation and welcome board they encountered across three days.
Every illustration was drawn to be reused — specific enough to signal an event's mood, modular enough to work across every touchpoint in the system.
The palette is a record of the place
Botanical green from banana leaves. Marigold from the flower garlands. Parchment from brass lamps and jasmine. The palm motif from the resort venue itself. Nothing chosen for aesthetics alone.
Build once, deploy everywhere
Each illustration appears across the invitation, the welcome board, the itinerary, and the wardrobe guide — pulled from the same library, resized, never redrawn.
Pellikuthuru & Viratham
Marigold garlands, jasmine pots, warm cream — the most traditional spread
Welcome Brunch & Mehendi
Sky blue, palm fronds, phoolkari umbrellas — festive arrival energy
Sangeet & Cocktail Night
Deep emerald, disco ball, champagne flutes — the most editorial spread
Mangalsnanam & Unjal
Pale yellow, banana leaf, pearl-and-gold strings — soft and ceremonial
Wedding Ceremony
Sage green, floral canopy, brass deepams — the most culturally precise
After Party
Deep navy, disco balls only — a complete tonal break into Western party-wear
Section 4 — Onboarding Documentation
The wardrobe guide
Many guests had never attended an Indian wedding, let alone a South Indian one. They didn't know the difference between a lehenga and a sharara, couldn't picture what "jewel tones" meant in this context, and had no idea where to shop from the US. The wardrobe guide became the most impactful single deliverable of the entire project — and the one that received the most direct feedback.
Each of the six events got its own illustrated spread: event name, timing, dress code, colour palette, and exact garment terminology for both men and women — specific enough to search for directly online. The final page was a curated vendor list of 14 stores that ship internationally, with practical tips on ready-made vs custom stitching, pre-draped saris, footwear for long distances, and how to use a measurement guide. It read less like a dress code and more like a guide written by someone who genuinely wanted guests to feel prepared — because that's exactly what it was.
What the wardrobe guide included
Per-event illustrated spreads
Each of the 6 events had its own page — event name, time, colour palette, garment names, and a custom illustration signalling its mood
Exact garment terminology
Lehenga, sharara, pattu saree, half-saree, kurtha, dhoti, sherwani — specific enough to search directly, with separate guidance for men and women
14 curated vendors
International shipping, all price ranges — with practical tips on ready-made vs custom stitching, pre-draped saris, and footwear for long distances
Colour mood by event
Bright traditionals for Pelli-kuthuru, jewel tones for Sangeet, pastels for the wedding ceremony — each event's palette made the mood immediately readable
"I could actually search for things online from the US and know exactly what I was looking for. I had no idea where to even start before this."
Friends attending their first Indian wedding, travelling from the US to India for the celebration — and experienced Indian wedding guests noted it was one of the most detailed guides they'd received, helping them understand the specific colour theme and mood of each event.
Section 5 — Guest Navigation
The same principles as digital — applied to print
The product design thinking lives here. Three days, 20+ distinct moments across multiple venues — guests needed to know exactly where to be, when, and what it meant, without asking anyone. Each itinerary was designed as a standalone daily schedule: the date in a terracotta display serif at the top, times in italic, event names in upright weight, locations in parentheses. Time vs event vs context — scannable in a glance, no reading required.
Day 1 runs from 7:30AM breakfast through the Sangeet at 7:30PM. Day 2 holds 8 events including the Muhurtham at 8:35PM. Day 3 is a single page — just breakfast, checkout, and goodbyes — and that restraint is a design decision too. Each page carries a different illustration from the system: umbrellas for Day 1, brass deepams for Day 2, just a palm for Day 3. The visual hierarchy shifts with the emotional weight of the day.
Scannable, not readable
Three hierarchy levels — time in italic, event name in upright weight, location in parentheses. A guest could find their next event in under two seconds without reading a sentence.
20+ moments across 3 days
The itinerary covered every moment from 7:30AM breakfast on Day 1 through 10AM goodbyes on Day 3 — including venue names, ceremony timings, and meal locations — all on three pages guests could fold and carry.
Section 6 — Multi-Touchpoint Experience Design
The full guest journey
Every touchpoint was designed as part of one continuous experience — from the moment guests received their save the date to the last photo they shared online.
Save the Date
Motion reel — the first impression of the visual world
Invitation Suite
6-event booklet — each spread its own colour world, same arch, same system
Wardrobe Guide
Per-event attire direction, garment terminology, 14 curated vendors, shopping tips
Itineraries
3-day illustrated schedules — 20+ moments across multiple venues, scannable at a glance
Welcome Boards
Per-event signage at full print scale — illustration system and original copy at the venue entrance
Menus
Food menus, bar menus, and a signature drinks card with illustrated cocktail art
Hamper Tags
Die-cut into the arch silhouette — 400+ guests, one physical object, the same form as every other touchpoint
Interactive Game
Mehendi trivia board — 25+ envelope pockets, designed to connect two groups of friends
Social & Motion
Save-the-date reel, Instagram posts, typography animations — identity extended into digital
What makes this work
Coherence without repetition
The arch is the system — in two dimensions and three
The scalloped Mughal arch frames every invitation spread, every welcome board, and every itinerary. One structural device, holding six completely different worlds together.
Illustrations communicate without text
Marigold garlands read as tradition, disco balls read as nightlife, brass deepams read as ceremony — the visual language is legible even across cultural backgrounds, without needing a single word of explanation.
The palette extends, not repeats
Warm cream for Pellikuthuru, sky blue for Mehendi, deep emerald for Sangeet, pale yellow for Mangalsnanam, sage for the ceremony, navy for the After Party. Six distinct worlds — one coherent identity running through all of them.
The writing is part of the design
Every welcome board carries original copy written to match that ceremony's emotional register — "A morning of traditions wrapped in grace," "Love in balance, blessings in motion." The words and the visuals were designed together, not separately.
Section 7 — Environmental Storytelling & Interactive Design
Translating identity into physical space
Every event had its own welcome board — designed in the same arch-and-illustration language as the invitations, printed at full scale, installed on gold easels, and carrying original copy written for that ceremony. The design didn't end at the invitation. It was waiting for guests when they arrived.
Pellikuthuru
Warm cream + botanical green — "A morning of traditions wrapped in grace"
Mehendi
Sandy blush + arch frame — "The first chapter of their forever"
Mangalsnanam
Dusty pink + botanical tile — "Showered in Haldi, renewed in beginnings"
Unjal Ceremony
Terracotta + marigold + palm fronds — "Love in balance, blessings in motion"
Wedding Ceremony
Sage green + floral garland canopy — brass deepams and jasmine flanking the arch
Interactive installation — Mehendi
Designed to get people talking
A large freestanding board with 25+ pink envelope pockets in a grid, each sealed with a gold wax seal — "Abishek & Niharika: How well do you know them?" Each card was individually assigned to a specific guest: "This question must be answered by Niharika's Dad", "Abishek's Mom", "New York Friend". The assignment meant every person had to find their envelope, and could only answer the question inside it — pulling people into conversations they couldn't opt out of, with questions only they would know the answer to. Guests who had never met were suddenly comparing notes. The board used the Mehendi illustration system and was designed to do something the other pieces couldn't: get two groups of friends who didn't yet know each other to actually interact.
Bar program — Sangeet
The system at 10pm
Three menus — alcoholic, non-alcoholic, and signature drinks — each typeset in the same script-and-all-caps system used across every other printed piece, against the Sangeet's deep emerald palette. The signature menu featured bespoke illustrated cocktail art. The Bride's Pick: "Tequila. Lime and a little bit of a kick. A bold choice." The Groom's Pick description: "Just drink it." — Groom.
Section 8 — Menus, Motion & Social Storytelling
Extending the identity into every surface
Motion extended the identity into digital — a save-the-date reel, invitation motion graphics, Instagram posts, and typography animations, all carrying the same visual language as the print system.
Save the date reel
Wardrobe guide motion
Illustration system
Response
What the work produced
Identity held at every scale
From a 5-inch booklet spread to a 4-foot venue welcome board — the arch, illustrations, and palette held without modification. No redesign for print scale.
System adopted across 6 events
The same visual language ran through every touchpoint — invitations, wardrobe guides, welcome boards, menus, programs, motion assets, and social content.
Wardrobe guide reduced friction significantly
Both first-time Indian wedding guests and experienced attendees called it one of the most useful and detailed guides they'd received — useful enough to shop from directly, in the US, before travelling to India.
Work received as fully professional
Guests and vendors assumed the work was produced by a hired studio. The system held under real-world production conditions — printed at scale, installed outdoors, photographed, and shared widely.
Interactive game created genuine connection
Each of the 25+ question cards was assigned to a specific guest by name — so finding your envelope and answering was unavoidable. Guests who had never met ended up comparing answers. Two groups of friends, pulled into conversation by design.
Print exposed what screen-testing never would
Once something is printed at 4 feet and installed outdoors, you can't iterate. That constraint sharpened every decision — hierarchy, contrast, copy length — in ways a Figma review never could.
What this project taught me
The most meaningful project I've ever designed — and the one that taught me the most about how I actually think.
Design systems aren't limited to digital
The same principles that create consistency in product design — hierarchy, scalability, modularity, reusable patterns — create richer, more cohesive experiences across physical and digital environments.
A strong system makes every touchpoint easier
When the system is solid, individual deliverables almost design themselves. The work accelerates — and the experience feels authored, not assembled.
Map the journey before designing any touchpoint
The ecosystem map came together late. Had I built it at the start, earlier decisions — illustration scope, palette extensions, print specs — would have been sharper.
Complexity can feel simple with the right information design
The wardrobe guide and itineraries proved that UX thinking belongs in print — scannable hierarchy, progressive disclosure, and clear wayfinding matter just as much off-screen.
Creative Campaigns — Macy's Inc.
One Brand.
A Lot of Worlds.
Macy's has a loyal, well-established customer base — and a real challenge alongside it: evolving each campaign to feel more relatable and engaging to a newer, younger audience, without losing what makes it unmistakably Macy's.
The Challenge
Evolving a legacy brand to feel more relatable, campaign by campaign
Macy's has a well-established, older-skewing core customer. Across every campaign — florals, spring/summer, back-to-school, toys — the creative challenge was the same: find a more contemporary, engaging visual language that could bring in a younger audience, without losing the customer who's already there.
The brief, restated as a design problem
How do you make a legacy retailer's campaigns feel more current and relatable to a younger customer, without losing the one it already has?
Section 1 — Flower Show
A system grown from one show
Macy's 2026 Flower Show came with its own licensed illustration library — florals sourced from the show's own merchandise. I led the design system built around that library, working with the design team — color washes, modular lockups, and application logic — which carried through a month of daily "Bouquet of Deals" executions spanning fragrance and jewelry.
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The system
Color washes and modular lockups, built around the show's licensed illustration set — a system designed to be reused across executions, not redrawn each time.
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The explores
Three different creative directions for the same daily-deal format, each testing a different way the illustration system could carry the moment — built for mobile and desktop from the start, not adapted after the fact.
V1 — Layered florals, framing the deal
Playing with the creative concept of layering the illustrated flowers while keeping the deal in focus, using framing as a way to keep focus.
V2 — Single deal vs. double deal
Playing with the idea of showing the customer two deals on the same plain banner (desktop only) versus two separate banners as part of a slideshow.
V3 — Brand shapes as framing device
Playing with the creative concept of the shapes used in the brand guidelines as a framing device for the deals themselves, using flowers as a guiding design.
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Shipped, in context
The full category page, live — a new deal every day from April through mid-May, carrying the illustration system across a full month of merchandising.
Section 2 — Spring/Summer Campaign
From cut-out grids to balanced editorial
I led a flexible campaign system for warm-weather dressing, working with the design team to balance editorial photography, product storytelling, and commerce — built for mobile and desktop from the start.
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The explores
V1 — Product-forward, cut-out grids
Focusing on the product and playing with grids and collages to show the different styles as cut-outs rather than in an editorial image.
V2 — Balanced editorial template
Playing with a more balanced template where products are shown on both sides to balance out the composition, with copy in the middle.
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Shipped, in context
The chosen direction, live on the Summer Style Guide homepage.
Section 3 — Back to School
Same assignment, three ways
I led one photoshoot's rollout across the homepage, working with the design team on three different compositional strategies — built for mobile and desktop from the start.
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The explores
V1 — Push & pull collage
Playing with a push & pull design treatment with collage-style image cut-outs to make some fun compositions for back to school. Color blocking focuses attention on the copy and adds a fun, colorful element to the mobile comps.
V2 — Grid system, product detail
Using a grid system to focus on product details, while also giving desktop a focus image placed right next to the copy.
V3 — Single group shot, motion
Using just a single image with multiple product features as a group shot, while also playing with the idea of adding motion to the mix.
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Shipped, in context
How the chosen direction carried through to the homepage and product listing page — the final hero moment shipped as motion, not a static banner.
Section 4 — Top Toy List
From collage to AI-assisted scenes
A deliberately different brand register — high-energy, multi-license, built for an entirely different audience. This is also the campaign where the production process itself evolved most: from manually composited product cut-outs to AI-assisted lifestyle scenes, using tools like Adobe Firefly, Luma AI, and Google Gemini.
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The collage era
Licensed product photography, manually composited into a single banner — this was the standard approach, and the direction I originated for this campaign.
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The AI-assisted era
Same licensed characters, now placed into fully generated lifestyle scenes — a bedroom, a playroom, an illustrated world — built faster than a traditional photoshoot or manual composite would allow.
Different tools, different eras — same goal: make the scroll worth stopping for.
Where the system struggled
How this work actually came together
This case study includes both live, shipped executions and the exploration boards that shaped them — real artifacts from the actual process, not a polished highlight reel. These campaigns moved through informal stakeholder review rather than dedicated usability research, so I can't point to A/B data proving one direction outperformed another. What I can speak to is the real process: how each direction was explored, and how stakeholders weighed in on what best fit the campaign's overall look and feel.
I design systems, environments, and experiences that help people feel oriented, connected, and engaged
I'm Niharika — a systems-minded creative working at the intersection of brand, product, and experience design. I blend visual storytelling with real-world usability, balancing aesthetics with structure and creativity with scalability.
At Macy's I learned to think at scale — evolving legacy systems under business and technical constraints, building reusable modules that hold up across high-traffic surfaces, and iterating quickly while maintaining consistency. My personal work reveals another side: emotionally driven storytelling, hand-crafted visual identities, and experiences rooted in culture and human connection.
I think in worlds, not isolated assets. Whether it's a homepage system, a social planning app, or a party game, my instinct is to create cohesive experiences where every detail is intentional and everything scales.
Beyond the brief
Outside of work, I design personalised experiences for people — celebrations, storytelling, social interaction. My biggest personal project was designing the full visual identity for my own South Indian wedding: a cohesive multi-event suite blending traditional cultural motifs with modern editorial design. Every element was custom illustrated — invitations, logos, wardrobe guides, signage, and iconography — built around botanical greens, marigold tones, parchment neutrals, and culturally intentional details. The goal was building an immersive visual world, not just pretty stationery.
I also design highly customised social games and experiences for parties and group events — rooted in behavioural thinking and how to get people genuinely connected rather than just consuming passively.
Elevated but approachable. Clean without feeling cold. Modern with warmth. Editorial yet functional.
Skills
- Product Design
- UX / UI Design
- Interaction Design
- Design Systems
- Prototyping
Tools & Technology
- Figma / Figma AI
- Adobe Creative Suite
- After Effects
- Adobe Firefly
- Luma AI
- AEM (Adobe Experience Manager)
- Framer
Experience
Macy's Inc.
Designer Specialist
Evolved the homepage from promotion-heavy layouts into scalable, storytelling-driven systems using AEM templates — supporting +2% go-forward comparable sales growth. Built and iterated on modular homepage systems in Figma, solving for scalability, content density, and usability across high-volume campaign environments. Developed motion and AI-assisted visual assets using After Effects, Firefly, and Luma AI.
Aug 2022 – Present
Clinique
Freelance Graphic / Web Designer
Created motion and visual assets for homepage and campaigns, scaling content across web and marketing platforms. Designed video creatives using Adobe After Effects & Premiere Pro. Developed digital ads for third-party platforms while maintaining brand consistency.
Apr – Jun 2022
Sociable — Personal Project
Product Designer (Solo)
Designed a community-driven planning platform to reduce decision fatigue by consolidating group preferences, trusted inputs, and AI-driven recommendations. Led end-to-end design from concept to high-fidelity prototypes in Figma, including user flows and interaction patterns.
2023
Education
Parsons School of Design (The New School)
Bachelor of Fine Arts — Communication Design
2017 – 2021
Cornell University (E-Cornell)
User Experience Design Certification
2023
Let's make something worth noticing
Open to new opportunities, collaborations, and conversations. If you're working on something interesting, reach out.