3D · Identity
Marshmallow Storytelling
A 3D cast, a village, and a quarterly keynote series that turned talabat's design system into a story 23+ squads actually cared about.
Marshmallow is talabat's design system — the foundation for every screen, across every product, in the MENA region. But a design system isn't just tokens and components. Its real users are the 23+ squads of designers, engineers, PMs, and data scientists who have to adopt it, contribute to it, and care about where it's going.
I built an identity layer on top of Marshmallow: a cast of 3D characters, a village called Talavat, and a serialized storyline that translates dense technical work into moments people remember. Every quarter became an episode; every OKR a mission; every component release a turn in the plot. The same information lands differently when it arrives through characters instead of bullet points.
The storytelling runs across Slack, live keynotes, and internal forums. This chapter is Q1'25 — The Age of Personalization.
A system that tells its story
Most design systems communicate in release notes. Marshmallow communicates in chapters. Each quarter I design a visual keynote built around characters, missions, and a shared worldline that translates the roadmap into something a non-designer can feel. The point isn't decoration — it's retention. When an engineer remembers "The Migration to the Main Plaza," they remember why we shaved eight days off a contribution cycle.
The keynote
The full Q1'25 storytelling, delivered to talabat's Product & Technology organization.
Marshmallow Entertainment
Each season opens with a title card. Framing the DS roadmap as an episodic series — not a slide deck — primes the audience to follow a plot instead of skimming initiatives.
In the last episode…
The Marshmallow team had just unified their workshops into one effort, growing the Appalatus Oak — talabat's orange symbol of connection — stronger with automated accessibility, motion tokens, agile processes, and clear content guidelines. But new challenges were already calling them to action.
The campfire scene
Under the Oak's glow, Gabble, Slavindir, Amigo, Momethius, and Vincelot name this quarter's tensions: visitors who can't navigate the branches, components too rigid to adapt, contributions that take too long to merge, and journeys that still feel lifeless without motion.
The arrival of Lucastiel
A shimmering light cuts through the campfire. Lucastiel, Father of the Fluid Portals, steps forward — carrying the bridge that connects Marshmallow components directly to the Oak's roots. Instant updates. Personalization per visitor. No more waiting on release cycles.
The journey across the village
Adaril rallies the team at dawn. Five missions will shape the Oak this quarter: Echoes of Accessibility, The Migration to the Main Plaza, Fluid the Portal of Personalization, Shaping Flexibility, and Whispers in Motion.
Echoes of Accessibility
Hennieth, Gabble, Yazzy, and Slavindir standardize semantic guidelines across screen readers, then fix Food and QC journeys with auditive labels that reveal the hidden paths. No visitor left behind — in close collaboration with Content Studio, food, QC, fintech, and growth tribes.
The migration to the Main Plaza
Momethius and Alaadin carry the Marshmallow repository from the village outskirts to the Main Plaza. What used to take eight days to land now arrives in hours — because the system lives where the builders live.
Shaping flexibility
Inside the glowing workshop, Amigo and the makers trade rigid atoms for swirling gloves of golden energy — molding 9 components into adaptable forms: Tile, Vendor Card, Fixed Footer, Alert, Message, Simple Card, Product Card, and Header Navigation. Experimentation without losing consistency.
Whispers in motion
Eddlewick and Vincelot open the Motion Spellbook and cast five delightful motion tokens into the Oak. Once Yazzy implements them in code, visitors stop hesitating — motion replaces confusion with intuition.
Fluid
At the center of the workshop hums a circular portal. Every team can toss any of 18 Marshmallow components through it, and this quarter the team is adding 9 more. No more waiting for app releases — snap it, and it's live.
An exciting hook
Adaril closes the chapter with the OKR recap — faster contributions, accessibility across shopping and QC, five motion enchantments, and the Fluid portal expanded. But a new storm is brewing: Keetakztan, a rival village, has spread word from distant lands. They come to challenge the Oak's dominance — and win it all.
Scenes