// 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

Timeline2022 — 2023; launched to the organization March 2023

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 — configurable brochures, flyers and capability documents that co-brand and populate themselves — taking designers out of routine production entirely. It launched to the organization in March 2023.

// 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

The Beacon-era Marketing Bench homepage, 2019, annotated in its user guide — The old platform was a catalogue with a designer behind it. The rebuild is a front door: quick links to every kind of material, and behind each one a form instead of a request.

Carelon Marketing Bench — Welcome to your new Marketing Bench, with Quick Links to every material type — The old platform was a catalogue with a designer behind it. The rebuild is a front door: quick links to every kind of material, and behind each one a form instead of a request.

The moment that takes the designer out of the loop. Pick a profile, choose co-branded or not, fill the client fields — logo, program name, phone, URL — and the flyer builds itself in the preview. View proof, order, done.

Configuring the member-facing core brochure — a multi-page piece with the same field-driven configurator — The same pattern at every scale — a multi-page member brochure and a sales capability document, each designed with intentional placeholder image and content areas so a field owner can produce it without asking anyone.

Configuring a sales capability document — placeholder image and content areas populate from the form — The same pattern at every scale — a multi-page member brochure and a sales capability document, each designed with intentional placeholder image and content areas so a field owner can produce it without asking anyone.

What files are configurable — a table of file types with a yes/no column and the fields each one exposes — The governance behind it. Every file type is either configurable or static, and the table says exactly which fields a configurable piece exposes — client logo, program name, URL, phone, image, disclaimer — so the brand stays governed while the production runs itself.

Featured items — Carelon-branded stationery and translations, ordered from the same platform — Beyond print: business cards and stationery, and a translation request that used to be an email thread, now a form with a price list attached.

The translation request form — languages, quantities and turnaround, submitted without a designer — Beyond print: business cards and stationery, and a translation request that used to be an email thread, now a form with a price list attached.

SalesHub — the repository for finished marketing collateral, the platform Marketing Bench sits beside — Two platforms with two jobs: SalesHub holds the finished collateral; Marketing Bench makes it. And it shipped with training — the March 2023 guide walks every user through the homepage before they touch a configurator.

Marketing Bench overview — the homepage annotated for training: hero banner, quick links, featured items, search and support — Two platforms with two jobs: SalesHub holds the finished collateral; Marketing Bench makes it. And it shipped with training — the March 2023 guide walks every user through the homepage before they touch a configurator.

// 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

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