Laura Marshall / Exemplar Designer
Portfolio · Carbon Next Tiger Team

I didn't just use Carbon. I shaped it. Now I want to define what it becomes.

7
years inside IBM product teams
8
Migration lead for eight acquired products.
I ask what's broken and design what's next.
Multi-award winning Carbon contributor
1 filed AI patent

Seven years inside product teams taught me things a design system team rarely sees firsthand. Developers who quietly abandoned Carbon because the pattern they needed didn't exist. Teams misusing components — not through carelessness, but because the system gave them no guidance. Acquisitions arriving with their own design instincts, needing to be brought into alignment.

In 2022, I worked on Carbon for IBM Products at 80% capacity — the only designer doing so at that level. I know Carbon from the outside, building products with it. I know it from the inside, contributing to it. Now I want to help shape what's next.

My AI fluency predates the hype. A 2020 patent exploring AI-driven prioritisation of radiology scans. AI-native, headless experience design work today. The first designer in my organisation to ship production code created with AI tooling. I'm not chasing fluency; I'm building on years of practice.

I've built with Carbon, contributed to it, and pushed against its limits. That's why I want to help define what's next.

I know where a design system must flex — and where it must hold.
Work

Seven years in product. This is what good actually looks like.

Seven years of craft and process — creating quality experiences fast, and what those years taught me about what good actually looks like.

Carbon adoption at scale — with teams who didn't choose it.

Eight products, nine months, one platform — strategy, judgment, and earning trust from teams who didn't choose the system.

I asked developers what was broken. Then I fixed it.

Listening to developers, finding the real friction, and fixing it.

I found the gaps in Carbon and filled them.

Components, patterns, and processes — a showcase of the work I've contributed to the system over the years.

1 filed patent in AI — before AI was a conversation.

A filed patent: AI-driven triage that pre-reads hundreds of scans, surfaces the critical image in the worklist, and keeps the radiologist in control.