Publishing, approvals, content structure, and permissions were spread across too many mental models.
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Case study 02 / CMS platform
Content Toro brings editorial operations into one controlled workspace.
A content management system for publishing, editing, workflow approvals, roles, structured content, and ongoing site operations.
Overview
A CMS workspace for teams that publish fast but still need control.
Content managers, marketers, editors, reviewers, and site operations teams.
Product design, workflow design, CMS IA, interface system, and visual direction.
A composed editorial system with clearer publishing states, ownership, and review confidence.
Challenge
The product had to feel simple for editors and powerful enough for governance.
Content teams move quickly, but CMS products often become a maze of permissions, fields, templates, drafts, scheduled updates, and QA checks. The challenge was to make that complexity legible without hiding the controls teams rely on.
I focused on modular content models, clear editorial states, and side-by-side review patterns so people could understand what is live, what is blocked, and what needs attention.
A structured CMS workspace that keeps editors oriented.
The selected component, page context, governance controls, and preview canvas stay close together so teams can edit live content without losing publishing confidence.
Flow in motion
Editorial flows showing how content teams move from planning to reusable page structure.
Campaign planning
Make scheduled content visible as an operating timeline.
The calendar flow shows how campaign density, dates, and placement activity can be scanned without opening every item.
Template creation
Turn a blank publishing need into a reusable content structure.
The creation flow makes setup, naming, and first configuration feel deliberate before editors start composing the page.
Template editing
Separate page structure from day-to-day content changes.
The template flow keeps component choices, layout structure, and save decisions explicit so teams can reuse page patterns safely.
Asset operations
Keep media selection close to the publishing workflow.
The asset flow shows how folder browsing and image selection can stay inside the CMS surface instead of becoming a separate production chore.
Process
From publishing pain points to a reusable editorial operating model.
01 / Research
Mapped content team routines, approval friction, page ownership, and publishing risk.
02 / Model
Defined content types, fields, media rules, workflow states, and role permissions.
03 / Flows
Designed paths for create, edit, review, schedule, publish, archive, and restore.
04 / System
Created reusable states for drafts, warnings, approvals, history, and validation.
05 / Prototype
Tested dense tables, editor panels, preview behavior, and bulk publishing actions.
Editorial states stay visible
Kept draft, review, scheduled, and published states close to every content item.
Structure before decoration
Prioritized content models and field logic so the UI could scale across many page types.
Governance without friction
Designed role and approval logic as ambient product feedback, not as a separate admin burden.
Final experience
A publishing system that makes status, structure, and ownership immediately readable.
01 / Campaign calendar
Turn publishing activity into a timeline teams can trust.
The campaign grid makes dates, status, ownership, campaign density, and hover-level value details visible so editors can understand what runs, when, and in which placement type.
02 / Component editing
Edit page components in context, not in a separate admin maze.
Component-level controls sit directly above the page preview so teams can inspect layout, update carousel items, and manage appearances while still seeing the customer-facing result.
03 / Template builder
Let teams compose pages from governed building blocks.
The template builder separates available components from template structure so designers and content teams can add, reorder, preview, and publish layouts without breaking the page model.
04 / Asset governance
Catch media issues before they reach a page or campaign.
The asset editor keeps image ratios, crop warnings, title fields, alt text, and required sizes in one review state so teams can fix metadata and presentation issues before publishing.
05 / Media operations
Make bulk organization feel controlled, even at library scale.
The folder manager keeps hierarchy, selection state, layout controls, filters, and upload actions visible so teams can move through large media libraries without losing context.
Impact
A CMS direction that compressed campaign work without hiding governance.
Moved routine campaign setup out of scattered tools, email threads, Slack follow-ups, and developer handoffs.
Gave product, content, copywriting, and review teams a shared workspace for logic, placements, assets, copy, scheduling, and readiness.
Protected engineering time by shifting common content and campaign changes into governed self-service flows.
Coupon logic, campaign values, content assets, copy, development, and quality review were brought into a clearer publishing path.
Teams no longer needed to stitch campaign work across separate systems, async messages, and repeated status checks.
Status, ownership, scheduling, previews, and asset checks made it easier to see what could safely go live.
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