85%
Users said they love the new look
20%
Increase in delivery speed
30%
Time saved per day on manual design work
Role
Lead Product Design
Team
1 designer, 1 technical writer
Timeline
1 month
01
Context
This project focused on defining a product's branding and building a design system that could scale with it. The product is a SaaS e-commerce operations platform that started as three separate tools, each with its own branding, before being combined into one suite. To meet a tight deadline, the team built a generic MVP design system instead of one rooted in the company's own brand.
02
Problem
Clients saw the company's full branding on the landing page and in the sales deck, then landed in a generic product interface that didn't match, undermining their trust before they'd even started using the platform.
The design system itself was built without scale in mind. And once the product outgrew it, teams fell into constant back-and-forth over inconsistent deliverables.
What users say
/3/
The sales deck looked like one company's, and the product felt like another's. I wasn't sure I was in the right place.
New Client
Evaluating the platform after the sales pitch
What stakeholders say
/3/
Walking a client from our pitch deck into the product felt like introducing them to a different company. It made us look unprofessional and cost us trust.
Sales Manager
Sells the platform to new merchants
03
Solution
Below are the key design decisions that shaped this project's outcomes. For each one, I first focused on solving the underlying challenge, then weighed it against constraints.
Define the product branding
Challenge
The company had no real brand identity beyond a logo and color palette, nothing for the product to consistently reflect.
Constraint
Any new identity had to match how sales and marketing were already presenting the company, not introduce something disconnected from what customers already knew.
Design Decision
Since any new identity had to stay recognizable to customers, I built a full brand guideline anchored in the company's existing look and feel. It went beyond visuals to define the brand's character, personality, and tone of voice.
The result is a comprehensive brand guideline
Translate brand identities into design principles
Challenge
A brand identity doesn't guide design work on its own. Without translation, decisions would still be made ad hoc.
Constraint
Brand identity is abstract and hard to apply directly to design decisions.
Design Decision
I translated the brand identity into a set of concrete design principles, clear enough to direct decisions but open enough not to box in creativity. These became the north star for designers, keeping the experience and interface consistent with the brand.
Designers have a reference for every design decision
Build a modular Design System
Challenge
The MVP design system couldn't scale with the product. Every new feature risked adding more inconsistency.
Constraint
There were ready-to-build design files using the old design system. Replacing it entirely meant designers would have to manually rework all of that existing work.
Design Decision
Since a full replacement would require more effort from designers, I instead evolved the existing system into the new one, keeping all current components and styles intact. Once built, I documented it clearly so anyone could reference it.
This sped up delivery and ensured consistency
04
Impact
85%
Users said they love the new look
Aligning the product with the company's branding built trust with users from the moment they opened it.
20%
Increase in delivery speed
A documented design system cut the back-and-forth between design and development.
30%
Time saved per day on manual design work
Reusable components let designers spend less time on repetitive work and more on new features.
05
Process
A team-first approach to rebuild branding and design system
This work would be carried out by the people living with it every day: sales and marketing projecting the brand, designers and developers building and maintaining the product. So I worked directly with them at every stage, rather than making decisions on their behalf, starting with stakeholders, then sales and marketing, then design and engineering.
06
Next Step
Now that the design system has been in use, the next step is checking back in with designers and developers: how they're actually using it day-to-day, and what could be improved. A design system only stays useful if it keeps getting updated and maintained, not left as a one-time deliverable.