Continental: Internal Communication
Continental — Designing Internal Communication as a Knowledge System
Role: Creative Direction & Communication Design
Year: 2021
Focus: Internal communication · Knowledge sharing · Design governance · Organizational clarity
Context:
Continental is a global technology company operating across highly specialized domains, markets, and internal cultures. As in many large organizations, knowledge tends to accumulate in silos: teams develop expertise locally, but insights, learnings, and best practices often fail to travel efficiently across the organization.
The project “Learn, Share, Improve – the Yokoten way” was initiated to address exactly that problem: how to make knowledge transferable, visible, and reusable across teams.
The Challenge
The core challenge was not visual design — it was adoption.
Internal communication initiatives often fail when they:
- Feel imposed rather than useful
- Are visually disconnected from daily work
- Lack clarity on what people are expected to do with the information
Continental needed a communication format that:
- Encouraged sharing without adding complexity
- Was instantly recognizable and easy to understand
- Could scale across departments and topics
- Supported a culture of continuous improvement
My Role
I was responsible for creative direction and communication design, working at the intersection of strategy, clarity, and usability.
My task was to translate an abstract organizational principle — Yokoten (horizontal knowledge sharing) — into a practical, visual communication system that teams would actually use.
Designing the System
Rather than designing a one-off campaign, I focused on creating a repeatable communication framework.
Key design decisions included:
- A clear, modular visual structure adaptable to different content types
- Strong hierarchy to guide readers through complex internal topics
- A consistent visual language that could be reused without redesign
- Formats suitable for posters, presentations, and internal channels
The system was designed so that new content could be added easily, without requiring constant creative reinvention.
Impact
- Improved visibility of internal best practices
- Easier sharing of learnings across teams and departments
- Strong recognition of the format within the organization
- A communication structure that could evolve over time
Most importantly, the design reduced friction: it made knowledge feel accessible rather than abstract.
Why This Matters
Internal communication is often underestimated as a design challenge. In reality, it is one of the clearest tests of systems thinking.
When design supports understanding, reuse, and clarity, it becomes an enabler of organizational learning — not just a visual layer.
This project reinforced a principle that runs through my work:
good design doesn’t just communicate messages — it changes how organizations operate.
