Anastasia Baula
Interaction & Visual
Designer
Twenty years of craft — brands at Ogilvy and Leo Burnett, products at Google and Meta, award-winning interfaces at Intuitive Surgical. Now designing in San Francisco.
Intuitive Surgical
At Intuitive Surgical, I helped build the design system adopted by 25 product teams, and My Intuitive, the award-winning app for surgeons using da Vinci systems.
View case studyIntuitive Surgical
Building the design system that powers Intuitive Surgical's digital ecosystem, and the award-winning interfaces that put da Vinci procedure data in surgeons' hands.
- 1 → 25Product teams adopting the component library
- $6.2MSaved by Design over 4 years
- $3.7MSaved by Engineering over 3 years
The problem
Intuitive's digital products were growing faster than their foundations. Teams were solving the same design problems in isolation, so every product looked and behaved a little differently, and design and engineering were duplicating effort across the board. Meanwhile surgeons, care teams and hospital executives were moving between tools that didn't feel like one ecosystem.
The solution
The fix was to stop solving every problem twice and give the ecosystem one foundation. On the design system team's core, I shared end-to-end ownership of the system as we grew it from 22 to 36 advanced components, with the prototypes and tokens behind them, built and maintained in Figma and ProtoPie.
I personally owned the most technically complex components, among them the data table, the line and bar charts, the selectable card, and the header and side navigation, and introduced the use of variables for controlling the components' appearance. Every component was documented, from high-level concept down to granular spec, and AI-assisted workflows helped me prototype faster.
Alongside the system work, I designed UI for several of the products built on those same components. Among them: My Intuitive, connecting surgeons using da Vinci X and Xi systems to their procedure data on desktop and mobile, and the User Management App.
The outcome
Adoption of the design system grew from 1 to 25 product teams in the four years since its first release, driving an estimated $6.2 million in design savings over four years and $3.7 million in engineering and development savings over three. The interfaces connecting surgeons to da Vinci X and Xi systems earned a Silicon Valley UX Award, with further recognition from the IDEA Awards, San Francisco Design Week and DMI.
Recognition
- IDEA Awards — Medical & HealthMy Intuitive
- SF Design Week — User ExperienceMy Intuitive
- DMI Awards — UX & EngineeringMy Intuitive
- SF Design Week — Design SystemsIntuitive Design System
- DMI Awards — Design ValueIntuitive Design System
Inside Google Assistant, I turned high-level design into pixel-perfect, componentized assets: one shared library carrying Assistant's visual language across UX, engineering and marketing.
View case studyA production-design engagement inside Google Assistant: making high-level design production-ready for every team that touches Assistant, from UX to engineering to marketing.
The problem
Google Assistant lives on phones, smart displays and everything in between, and its design was moving fast. UX, engineering and marketing all needed production-ready assets, but without one organized source they kept redrawing the same screens, and small inconsistencies crept onto every surface.
The solution
I translated high-level design into pixel-perfect, componentized assets and organized them into reusable libraries: named, layered and structured so anyone could find the right screen and drop it straight into their work. Google was moving from Sketch to Figma at the time, so part of the work was carrying the asset library over, component by component. The shared library became the single reference point, from phone screens to smart displays.
The outcome
One library now serves UX, engineering and marketing: fewer inconsistencies across Assistant's surfaces, less rework, and significant time saved on every handoff from design to production.
IBM
For IBM's Watson AI brand, I designed banners for the Welcoming Today's IBM campaign, a social media kit that keeps agency partners on-brand, and a refreshed Watson Experience Guide.
View case studyIBM
Helping IBM's Watson AI brand speak with one voice across campaigns, social channels and agency partners.
The problem
IBM's Watson is one of the most recognizable names in AI, with work flowing through campaigns, social channels and outside agency partners. At that scale, maintaining brand consistency across every channel and partner was a challenge of its own, and the Watson Experience Guide website needed to evolve alongside IBM's brand standards.
The solution
I produced high-fidelity marketing and brand assets across the Watson ecosystem, from banners for the Welcoming Today's IBM campaign to a modernized Watson Experience Guide brought in line with IBM's brand standards.
The social kit
The centerpiece was the Watson Social Media Kit, which distilled the brand into a reusable layout system. I documented grids, type scales and card templates to the point that outside agency partners could produce on-brand assets without guesswork.
Watson Core
Watson Core was an identity for the team itself. I drew isometric illustrations celebrating the people behind Watson, used across t-shirts, print pieces and banners.
The outcome
The social kit streamlined asset production with agency partners and tightened alignment across Watson's messaging, the Experience Guide was brought fully in line with IBM's modern brand, and the campaign work went on to welcome today's IBM.
Mastercard
Your Emotions Are Priceless — an interactive UEFA Champions League campaign for Mastercard: face-tracking turned fans into animated characters cheering in their team's colors.
View case studyMastercard
Your Emotions Are Priceless — an interactive UEFA Champions League campaign for Mastercard I led as art director at Aimbulance: face-tracking turned fans into animated characters cheering in their team's colors.
- 84,855Avatars created by fans
- 77,560Emotions shared on social media
The problem
Mastercard sponsored the UEFA Champions League, but visibility in the stadium doesn't automatically translate to visibility in social feeds. The brand needed an experience worth sharing, one fans would carry into their feeds themselves.
The solution
As digital art director at Aimbulance, I led a team of designers on the Avatar project — Your Emotions Are Priceless. I shaped the character world, the campaign's main page and its typography. At the center, a facial-recognition system read each fan's expressions through their webcam and mirrored them on a digital avatar's face in real time: delight, despair, disbelief. It then dressed the avatar in their team's colors, ready to share.
From sketch to system
I drew the characters to be simple, vibrant and expressive, with big heads, small bodies and oversized emotions. They started as pencil sketches and were refined against illustration references into a consistent style that worked everywhere in the campaign, from hero banners to avatar grids.
The outcome
Fans created 84,855 avatars and shared 77,560 emotions on social media over the life of the campaign, a measurable lift in visibility for the brand, one supporter portrait at a time.
Meta
Two engagements with Meta: the F8 2019 keynote — Driving Business Growth with Facebook Marketing Technology and Partners, designed for the VP of Solutions Engineering & Partnerships — and an illustrated identity for the F8 Creative crew.
View case studyMeta
Two projects from F8 2019, Facebook's developer conference: a mainstage keynote for the VP of Solutions Engineering & Partnerships, and an illustrated identity for the Creative crew behind the conference's look.
The problem
At F8 2019, Facebook's developer conference, the VP of Solutions Engineering & Partnerships took the mainstage to present a complex partner ecosystem: products, marketing technology, data and dozens of partners. The challenge was translating that much material into a narrative a live audience could easily follow, told in one consistent voice.
The solution
I designed the keynote, Driving Business Growth with Facebook Marketing Technology and Partners, as a single visual narrative, working with motion designers and communication leads to shape structure, slides and data into a story an audience could follow.
On stage
From product walk-throughs to statistics, I held every slide to the F8 system: one visual language from the opening frame to the mainstage screens.
The Creative crew
The same year I took on a second assignment for the team behind the conference's look — the F8 Creative crew. I drew them a single-line isometric identity in Meta's visual style, printed on the crew's shirts for the conference.
The outcome
The keynote ran on the F8 2019 mainstage in front of a live developer audience, and the crew identity travelled from screens to shirts. Two very different projects, one standard of finish.
Meiso Matcha
I built a complete identity for Meiso Matcha — logo, icon system, and packaging in one simple, minimal, modern language, designed to carry the tea into a new market.
View case studyMeiso Matcha
I designed Meiso Matcha's brand identity from the ground up: logo, icon system and packaging, all speaking one language.
The problem
Meiso Matcha was preparing to enter a new market and needed a new visual identity, starting from a blank page. The brand had to distinguish its three grades of matcha at a glance and stand out on the shelf, while staying simple and refined.
The solution
I designed the whole brand as one language. The logo is a swirl of matcha mid-stir that doubles as the o of meiso, built to work on its own or with the full name. Around it I drew an icon system that separates the three grades, culinary, detox and ceremonial, each with its own pictograms for how the tea is meant to be used, then carried the language across the packaging.
The outcome
With logo, icons and packaging speaking one language, Meiso Matcha entered its new market with the recognition it needed.