Paving the Way
Waymo LLC
The Story
I was hired by Waymo, the self-driving car company under the Alphabet/Google umbrella, as a Marketing Coordinator to broadly support the team’s effort to officially launch the Waymo brand to the public. Over a year, I distinguished myself as a trusted resource and brand steward, expertly designing internal and external assets and experiences to establish the brand and elevate the launch.
Aligning Communications
I started small. Noticing documents and portals using mismatched or out-of-date icons, I compiled them into a single file and redesigned them in a style aligned with the Product team’s existing standards. I also created a submission form to support the implementation of a straightforward process for teams to request new icons from Marketing. I set up quarterly meetings for the team to review requests to assess and approve new ideas, creating a positive feedback loop between the company and the brand.
Before Redesign
After Alignment
The positive reception of the internal brand alignment work led to more visible work on external branding materials, starting with the brand story presentation used by employees to discuss Waymo’s history and goals. I standardized layouts and refreshed the graphics to keep viewers engaged with the narrative without being distracted by the visuals on screen.
As a result, the Communications Team asked me to update their weekly internal presentation in that exact likeness. As I gained knowledge and insights about Waymo’s brand and history, I developed a low-level understanding of the complexities of the supporting technology and also requests from the Perception and Safety teams to refine how they visually communicated their work in their presentations.
Defining Events
Having established myself as a brand steward, I began developing the brand from the inside out by designing materials for both relaxed internal and more refined client-facing events. These events included a mixer where Waymo invited industry experts and investors to chat technology with leadership after hours and an Alphabet-sponsored industry networking event inspired by an existing visualization and focused on representing the refinement of the larger Alphabet brand.
I designed the following panels for an international audience based on a handful of talking points the Recruiting team wanted to present during a recruiting event in Switzerland. They provided the layout and content for each panel, and it was my job to pair that messaging with appropriate brand images and treatments to tell the story.
International recruiting booth panel designs
Supporting the Launch
I led the charge on many of the assets involved with Waymo’s official brand launch. I made smaller contributions, like attentively creating all the social assets for their appropriate platforms, and brought big ideas to life, like combining our new brand photography with photos gathered from people around the company into slides that would play on various screens throughout the office.
Social media headers
The biggest ‘wow’ factor came from a stair wrap that I designed for the primary staircase in the building - which housed hundreds of people across various Alphabet moonshot projects.
Swag Store
My final project as a Waymonaut was one of the most ambitious undertakings of my career and one of my proudest accomplishments. My love of branded merchandise and my long history of designing shirts collided when I discovered early on at Waymo that there wasn’t a straightforward way for anyone to purchase approved company-branded merchandise internally. I made it my mission to find a solution that allowed folks to represent the company they worked for (and often loved) in a way that would be fully approved and supported by the marketing team with buy-in from leadership.
I coordinated the entire process. I found a vendor who gave us options, got us samples, helped us set up a portal, and got sign-off on the items and price points from the entire chain of command. I designed each item, working with the producers to correct colors and layouts. I coordinated with staff in every major international office to set up racks of samples in each size for people to browse and confirm they were ordering the correct size.
During my last week at Waymo, I set up in-person pick-up or “drop days” for each office to save on shipping. I made an event out of those final days, recruiting people who had given opinions and feedback throughout the process to help distribute and experience the overwhelmingly positive impact that something as small as a shirt or a hat could bring to their coworkers and acquaintances.