Designing Against the Odds: How We Shipped with No Devs, No Roadmap, and No Perfect Tools
Written by Jeeyoung Yang and Kevin Camelo
It’s easy to assume that great design comes from perfect conditions — a clear brief, a fully staffed team, the right tools, and enough time to explore.
But the truth is: perfect conditions rarely exist.
IBM Cloud’s UI was overdue for change. While the platform’s technology evolved, the UI hadn’t been updated in five years — outdated, fragmented, and weighed down by legacy design decisions. The need for change was clear, but real momentum only sparked when we helped visualize what a new future could look like.
Alongside other key drivers and leadership’s support, we helped lead a Cloud-wide design jam — bringing together designers, developers, architects, and product managers to reimagine IBM Cloud from the ground up. Rooted in real user needs, we aligned on a bold, unified vision — one that would later become the foundation for Carbon for Cloud: a mission to deliver a consistent, high-quality experience that would transform IBM Cloud inside and out.
But setting the vision was just the beginning. The reality was much tougher: we had no dedicated development resources, no formal roadmap to guide us, and no tools suited to the scale and complexity of what we were trying to build.
Still, we found a way forward — not just because we believed in the vision, but because we felt it was worth staking our careers on. Every challenge imaginable seemed wrapped into one project, but we embraced it. We learned to navigate obstacles and designed against the odds, leaving us with lessons we’ll carry for life.
We shipped Carbon for Cloud — IBM’s award-winning design system extension — by leaning on grit, creativity, and resilience.
This is a story of vulnerability and persistence: how we turned uncertainty into momentum, resistance into collaboration, and a bold vision into reality. It’s proof that with conviction, scrappiness, and creative problem-solving, you can turn impossible odds into meaningful innovation.
1. Build to inspire, not to solve
Turning the vision into execution was more challenging than we anticipated. As exciting as this vision was, it lacked the direction to move forward for the business. Leadership needed proof it was worth investing in, and product teams needed to believe in the impact to drive this transformation.
We reframed and promoted the vision as a starting point — rallying teams, inspiring belief, and gaining the momentum needed to overcome challenges together.
To support this approach, our tone as the design system team on IBM Cloud needed to evolve. Originally focused on delivering pixel-perfect solutions with airtight documentation, we shifted toward sharing ideas that inspired action.
We kicked off a roadshow across IBM to build awareness and spark enthusiasm for our vision. From one-on-one interactions with small product teams to large-scale events for the entire Cloud design organization, we created spaces for collaboration and dialogue. These included design meetups and in-person critique sessions, where we welcomed the community to learn about the project, share feedback, and embrace the bold direction we were taking.
To validate the vision, we partnered with our Cloud product teams on a user research study comparing the as-is IBM Cloud UI to our vision. The results spoke volumes: 91% of participants preferred the new design, calling it more trustworthy, modern, and approachable. Seeing such clear results was the moment when user validation turned our concept into something tangible, giving us a much-needed morale boost and reinforcing that we were on the right path.
“We weren’t just chasing the vision, we were making it real and getting others to believe in it.” — Kevin
We also sought out external recognition, applying for design awards and conferences to prove we weren’t working in a bubble. We carefully pulled together a package of our work with our research, and as a result won the Red Dot Design Concept Award 2023 and the . These awards weren’t just recognition — they legitimized our vision, boosted excitement across IBM Cloud, and signaled to leadership that this wasn’t just a design refresh — it was a necessary evolution.
Inspiration creates a momentum that solutions alone can’t match. By backing the vision with research, real-world feedback, and strategic storytelling, we turned abstract ambition into tangible evidence.
2. Reframe constraints as opportunities
We were a team of designers with a bold vision, yet no clear way to build it — because we had no dedicated development resources. Nonetheless, with IBM Cloud relying on us to drive transformation, it was up to us to find a way to build Carbon for Cloud.
The lack of resources couldn’t hold us back — they became an opportunity to secure development support. From this constraint, our PAL-atroopers initiative (part “paratrooper,” part “Pattern Asset Library”) was born.
PAL-atroopers was a strategic effort to collaborate with product teams that had engineering bandwidth. By working alongside teams like Cloud Security, we were able to design, test, and iterate on key components tied to real product use cases. As part of this collaboration, we also shared some of our designer resources with the product teams, ensuring they had access to specialized design expertise. This win-win setup not only nurtured relationships with product teams, but also enabled us to build our component library without dedicated development resources.
The initiative served as a practical solution to develop our net-new components that lacked development support. Co-creating with our users, however, revealed an even greater advantage: stronger, more tailored outcomes. Components built collaboratively were better equipped to address the unique challenges teams faced within their services.
We also embedded ourselves into business critical projects. These weren’t permanent commitments — they were tactical targets in delivering real outcomes tied to real release cycles. Teams that had development resources were our outlets to test and ship components in production environments without owning the resources ourselves. We weren’t just designing in the abstract — we were proving the system’s value where it mattered most.
“We didn’t hide behind polished solutions. We shared messy sketches, work-in-progress ideas, and prioritized progress over perfection.” — Jeeyoung
Our resource limitation didn’t hold us back, instead it sharpened our focus. Progress wasn’t about having it all, it was about pushing forward. This experience reaffirmed a fundamental truth: constraints aren’t obstacles, they’re launchpads for inventive problem-solving. And in our case, those same constraints fueled collaboration and proved our business value.
3. Break the pattern, set the pace
As the project evolved, we learned that fostering collaboration required us to step up as both communicators and facilitators.
In design systems, decisions often get siloed, causing disconnects and delaying progress between its users. Our design system had a dedicated website, but its rather slow update cycle left both our users and contributors feeling disconnected and out of the loop, especially in times of rapid updates due to tight business deadlines.
It was our opportunity to deliver, but we had to pivot once again.
To become more agile in the build process, we broke our conventional approach as a design system team. Rather than relying on a static documentation site, we moved our guidance directly into Figma. Collaborators could now edit, comment, and enhance the documentation in real time. The file became our living source of truth, combining specs, best practices, and interactive examples all in one place. Over 21 designers contributed, transforming it into a blueprint that fostered shared ownership and alignment.
“Sharing our design decisions so openly felt risky, but embracing that vulnerability led to speedy solutions.” — Kevin
And to further bridge the development gap, we started using Figma’s Dev Mode to initiate handoff directly in the design file. This resulted in a 20–30% reduction in time spent communicating back and forth between design and development, allowing us to move to fit and finish with contributing developers two weeks faster on average per component. What started as a workaround developed into a robust workflow. We weren’t just keeping up, we were building momentum, proving that imperfect tools and processes couldn’t stop us from designing smarter and faster.
By making all our design decisions in a shared Figma file, we faced greater scrutiny, with every pixel becoming a point of contention. However, this approach empowered us to iterate more quickly, driven by the collaborative energy of contributors willing to join.
“Designing against the odds pushes creative minds to uncover unexpected, impactful solutions.” — Jeeyoung
From guerrilla-style development to open collaboration in Figma, Carbon for Cloud was built by prioritizing momentum over polish and mission over comfort. But the truth is, the journey came at a cost.
Pushing through challenges was often exhausting, and believe us, there were multiple times when we nearly called it quits. That’s why celebrating the wins became an essential part of this journey — a way to remind ourselves why it was all worth it. After months of heads-down work, we made intentional choices to celebrate — sometimes on our own time, and even on our own dime. We travelled across the globe to attend design award ceremonies, not just to represent our work, but to feel it. Standing side by side, seeing the impact of our work brought a kind of excitement and clarity that no metric ever could. Those moments were a recharge and a significant reminder that all the struggle had shaped into something truly meaningful.
So, for anyone designing against the odds — regardless of your company, resources, or role — here are a few takeaways from our story:
- Perfect conditions don’t exist. With discomfort comes progress.
- Trust the process and work openly. Share early, invite feedback, and build community around the work.
- Reframe limitations. Constraints can unlock unconventional solutions.
- Celebrate every win. It’s the secret ingredient to keeping the spark alive.
If this story resonated with you or your team navigating imperfection, don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Let’s keep designing forward — no matter the odds.
Acknowledgments
Written by: and
Visuals by: Jeeyoung Yang
Special shoutout to our reviewers Josef Bodine, Lisa Kaiser and Zoltan Kollin.
Jeeyoung Yang is a Design Lead at IBM based in Stuttgart, Germany. Kevin Camelo is a Visual Designer at IBM based in Nevada, USA.
The above article is personal and does not necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies, or opinions.
