How do you design for investors?

As Senior Design Consultant embedded within the Chief Investment Office (CIO), I collaborated with research analysts and economists to present complicated data stories and insights as easy-to-comprehend communications, visualizations, and infographics.

The CIO is responsible for the organization’s investment portfolios. The CIO team synthesizes the best internal and external investment thinking and thought leadership to deliver tactical and strategic portfolio guidance and goals-based advice to the financial advisors and clients of the firm.

Data Visualization

Infographics and Charts

Data visualization is the presentation of complex data in a pictorial or graphical format.

Visualization makes the data more natural for the human mind to comprehend and therefore makes it easier to identify trends, patterns, and outliers within large data sets.

My job included conveying complex concepts in a universal manner that business leaders and their clients could understand and utilize.

Interest Rates Timeline
MLMW Specialty
MLWM Radial Charts

Workflow

Publishing

I helped Merrill Lynch define their content publishing workflow—from draft to review to posting—by:

  • managing branding standardization across all disciplines
  • conducting content and design audits to ensure conformity with established design guidelines and QA standards
  • evaluating and optimizing design processes, resulting in time and resource savings
  • creating user-friendly production templates, style guides, reference materials, and training documentation to share best practices, standards, and guidelines with team members
Merrill Lynch Design Workflow

Weekly Letter

Publishing

I developed, designed, and produced The Weekly Letter, the CIO team’s latest perspectives on the markets and global economy.

Each report included:

  • commentary on market trends
  • releases of economic data
  • a summary of the past week’s market activity
  • data on performance of key indexes

Monthly Letter

Publishing

I developed, designed, and produced The Monthly Letter, the CIO team’s look at longer-term forces shaping market opportunities.

Each report included:

  • a deeper dive into longer-term financial market trends
  • an in-depth interview with a leading market strategist
  • a summary of asset class positions