// L02 — Creative Operations

Creative Operations & Marketing Bench

Print-on-demand that runs without a designer in the loop.

OrganizationElevance Health / Carelon (with WebbMason)

RoleCreative lead / UI design

FocusVariable print-on-demand, self-serve materials

Impact~60% faster turnaround / ~30% higher engagement

Timeline2020

Scroll / Case study

Creative Operations & Marketing Bench — cover

// The brief

Marketing Bench let sales and leadership order branded materials and merchandise — but on the old platform every change ran through a designer and the print vendor first. As part of the Carelon rebrand, I rebuilt it as a variable print-on-demand site stakeholders could self-serve, taking designers out of routine production entirely.

// The challenge

Marketing Bench let sales, leadership, and stakeholders order branded materials and merchandise — but the old platform routed every change through a designer: edit the layout, get it approved, hand it to the print vendor, wait for them to upload it. A designer sat in the critical path of routine production, and speed to market suffered.

An enterprise environment, an external print vendor (WebbMason) whose print-on-demand capability was still light, funding to secure with leadership, and a live audience of sales and leadership already relying on the tool.

// The work

Annotated walkthrough of the Marketing Hub homepage — build a marketing folder, quick links to the resource center, stationery, sales support, and promo items — How it was taught: the homepage annotated for the field, with “Build a Marketing Folder” as the front door and quick links into the resource center, stationery, sales support, and promo items.

The customized client materials catalog, with logos for Amtrak, Baltimore City Public Schools, California, Catholic Health Initiatives and CenturyLink — The scale it had to hold: a live catalog of client-specific material — Amtrak, CVS, CenturyLink, Baltimore City Public Schools, whole states — orderable without a designer opening a file.

The View Proof and Create PDF step, ending in a downloadable finished file — The whole bottleneck, replaced by two steps. Choose a client and the logo, program name, phone number and URL populate across the template; view the proof, create the PDF, download a production file.

A finished branded piece annotated to show which fields fill automatically and which the user sets — And the piece that comes out, annotated: logo, program name, hero image, session count, contact block — every field marked as either automatic or the requester's to set. That map is what let non-designers self-serve safely.

Choosing a format — digital messages, postcards, brochures, kick-it pieces — Formats ran the range — digital messages, postcards, brochures, tip sheets — and a folder of them could be collated and shipped the next business day.

The Marketing Folder catalog — collated sales materials selected and added to cart — Formats ran the range — digital messages, postcards, brochures, tip sheets — and a folder of them could be collated and shipped the next business day.

A client-customized EAP brochure produced from the platform templates — Real output, one system: the same templates configured per client, at a volume no designer-in-the-loop process could have carried.

A client-branded manager resources piece produced from the platform templates — Real output, one system: the same templates configured per client, at a volume no designer-in-the-loop process could have carried.

// The mandate

The Carelon rebrand was the opening to rebuild Marketing Bench as a proper variable print-on-demand site — materials intentionally designed with placeholder image and content areas that stakeholders could self-serve across clients, products, and purposes, with no designer in the loop.

// John's role

↳Rebuilt Marketing Bench as a variable print-on-demand platform
↳Designed the site's interface (UI)
↳Led the designers producing the rebranded, templatized materials
↳Worked daily with the WebbMason print-vendor team and with leadership
↳Secured funding for the refresh with leadership and kept the work on track

Worked with

↳In-house designers — led the rebranding and production work
↳WebbMason — print-on-demand vendor
↳Leadership and stakeholders — funding and sponsorship

// Key decisions

Design the designer out of the loop

Built materials with intentional placeholder image and content areas so stakeholders could self-serve across clients and products — replacing the edit → approve → hand-off → upload chain that used to need a designer for every change.

Free designers for the work that matters

The point wasn't more output from the team — it was removing routine production from designers' plates so their bandwidth went to projects that actually moved the business.

Own the vendor relationship, don't hold it at arm's length

Worked daily with WebbMason and secured funding with leadership rather than treating the vendor as a hand-off. Their print-on-demand capability was light; we designed to what the platform could be, not what it had done before.

// The outcome

↳Eliminated a designer bottleneck and production-level work, cutting turnaround ~60%
↳Adopted across the organization — sales, leadership, and stakeholders all used it (~30% higher engagement)
↳Became WebbMason's flagship print-on-demand case, used to sell their platform to other companies

// Reflection

What I'd change: use AI to automate and track the site's contents and publishing. There's real organizational overhead in uploading, updating, running maintenance cycles, and sunsetting older materials — exactly the kind of work AI is good at staying on top of.

previousBeacon Health Options → Carelon

All leadership work

nextWorkfront Workflow Transformation