Google - Denis Sazhin

Scope

Over seven years, my role grew from hands-on visual and motion design into broader responsibility for visual systems, creative direction, scalable production and digital experiences. As teams, leadership and vendors changed, I also became a source of continuity: someone who could turn ambiguous requests into workable approaches, connect design decisions to implementation, and help teams move forward when the path was unclear.

What the role covers

Visual systems & standards · Creative direction · Iconography & illustration · Motion design & animation · Digital & interactive · Templates & asset libraries · Automation & implementation · Designer guidance & evaluation · Ambiguity & unconventional problem solving

Selected work

Three examples of the kinds of problems I am often brought into: evolving visual systems, technical constraints and repeated work that needs a more scalable solution.

01 · Visual systems

From one rebrand to a connected brand system

The original brief was to create a fresh identity for GBOedu and make a clear break from the existing Mastery brand. I had already developed and presented several directions when a broader organizational change introduced a new parent structure above GBOedu and several other groups.

That changed the problem, not just the deliverables. I paused the child identity and shifted the work upstream, defining the parent system first so the two brands would not evolve independently. Once that foundation was established, I developed the guidelines and rollout materials, then returned to GBOedu and evolved the earlier work within the new structure. The value was in recognizing the hierarchy had changed and reorganizing the work around it without discarding useful progress.

The original briefCreate a fresh identity for GBOedu

The constraintA compressed timeline, an evolving org structure and existing work to carry forward

The shiftA new parent structure changed the brand architecture mid-project

The decisionPause the child identity and establish the parent system first

The deliveryTwo connected identities, guidelines and rollout-ready collateral

What this solved The new parent and child organizations could launch as distinct but related identities, without discarding the work already underway or creating two disconnected systems.

02 · Digital systems + implementation

When the requested feature wasn’t the real problem

A cross-functional team asked whether several third-party websites could be embedded into a single page within the corporate Google Sites environment. After researching the platform and its constraints, I found that the requested implementation was not realistically possible.

Instead of treating that as the end of the request, I stepped back and clarified the underlying need. The team did not actually need embedded websites, they needed one reliable place to surface information from several sources. I reframed the problem, proposed an automated data layer, and carried the idea far enough across design and development to make it real. The first implementation succeeded, and the same approach was later reused for events, calendars, resource content and other structured experiences.

The requestCombine content from several external websites into one page

The constraintThe requested embedding approach was not technically viable

The reframeSolve the information problem instead of reproducing the original implementation

The solutionBuild an automated layer that collects, structures and displays the source data

What this unlocked Clarifying the underlying need turned an impossible implementation request into a scalable solution that was reused for newsfeeds, events, calendars, resource content and later automation work across satellite sites.

03 · Scale + production

Turning recurring requests into reusable systems

Across the programs I supported, similar requests kept returning in different forms. They often appeared to be separate design tasks, but underneath them were the same layout decisions, assets, standards and production questions.

I treated that repetition as a systems problem. Instead of solving the same thing again each time, I identified what could be standardized, automated or made reusable. Repeated layouts became templates, shared visual decisions became libraries and components, and recurring production questions became clearer standards. The result was less dependency on individual designers, faster starting points for teams, and more consistency without requiring everyone to relearn the system from scratch.

The patternSimilar requests across programs

The decisionTurn repeated work into reusable building blocks

The deliveryTemplates, asset libraries and production standards

What this made possible Teams could move faster with established decisions already built into the system, while reducing repeated design effort and making more work possible without increasing dependency on individual designers.

Broader role

Beyond the selected cases

The three examples above represent only part of the role. My day-to-day scope also includes creative direction, designer guidance and evaluation, hiring support, interface and interaction design, stakeholder consultation, production oversight, implementation, and helping teams work through problems that do not fit neatly into a design brief.

Selected visual work

Alongside that broader responsibility, visual design remains an important part of my practice. Below is a selection of work across iconography, illustration, motion, presentation systems, information design and digital experiences.