UX & Creative Lead — DEPT® Agency

Overview

Role: UX & Creative Lead

Client: The Carlyle Group

Agency: DEPT®

Timeline: 2025-2026

Status: Live at carlyle.com

The Challenge

The Carlyle Group, one of the world's largest private equity firms, was undergoing a full rebrand and needed a website to match. The challenge wasn't just visual — it was structural. Carlyle serves three distinct audiences: institutional investors, financial advisors, and portfolio companies, each with completely different needs, mental models, and expectations. The new site had to feel effortless for all of them

The Role

I came in as Senior Designer and stepped up to UX & Creative Lead mid-engagement when senior leadership transitioned off the project. I owned the end-to-end UX, partnered with strategy on the experience vision, collaborated with an ACD on visual direction, and worked directly with Carlyle stakeholders in person alongside DEPT's SVP of Creative. I became the connective tissue between the client and the team — the person who knew the project inside and out.

The Process

Experience Audit
Before a single wireframe was drawn, I conducted a full experience audit of the existing carlyle.com. What I found revealed why users weren't staying:

Broken loops — Links throughout the site sent users to external URLs, only to route them back to carlyle.com, creating disorienting dead ends
PDF dependency — Case studies and thought leadership were downloadable PDFs rather than embedded content, driving users off-site and killing engagement
Inconsistent email capture — Newsletter signups appeared as both embedded forms and text links with no consistent pattern, creating confusion and lost conversions
No content system — Insights and thought leadership were Carlyle's biggest value-add, but displayed inconsistently across modules with no unified logic. For a firm positioning itself as the expert, the experience didn't match the reputation

These findings became the foundation for every design decision that followed — and the case for a full redesign rather than a refresh.

Strategy to Execution

Our immersion research and audit findings culminated in a comprehensive experience strategy presentation to Carlyle stakeholders — covering audience insights, content architecture, and a vision for the redesigned site.

Then we had to move fast.

With Carlyle mid-rebrand and a hard launch deadline looming, there was no time for a traditional design process. We began wireframing the homepage before the new brand was fully finalized — designing in parallel with the rebrand, making quick decisions, and iterating in real time. It required trust from the client and confidence from the team.

This is where I stepped fully into the creative lead role — keeping the design moving while staying aligned with an evolving brand direction.

Designing for Today and Tomorrow

One of the most exciting parts of this project was pitching an AI-powered experience layer alongside the core redesign. We wireframed two parallel directions — one for MVP launch, and one that imagined a future where the site dynamically adapts based on who you are.

The AI concept centered on behavioral personalization — content that shifts based on which section of the site you're in, which persona you map to, and the behavioral signals you've left behind through clicks and cookies. A financial advisor and an institutional investor could land on the same page and have a completely different experience tailored to their needs.

The client chose to hold AI features for a post-MVP phase — but the concepts are fully designed and ready to build.

Delivery

From there, the project moved into sprint-based execution. I led the UX across all aspects of the site — moving from wireframes to high-fidelity designs page by page, while simultaneously building out the Carlyle design system that would make the whole experience cohesive and scalable.

The design system wasn't just a deliverable — it was the foundation that allowed the team to move fast without sacrificing consistency across 112 pages.

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