Email Design System
At CMC Markets email production is decentralised. This creates an environment where emails were: inconsistently designed, off-brand, time-consuming and expensive. To solve this issue it was proposed to make a design system.
Primitives
Primitives are elements that build the foundation of the design. These consist of brand colours, typography, spacing and iconography.
P R I M I T I V E S
Low-Level Components
Low-level components are built with primitives. These are the smallest of components which are usually nested within mid-levels. CMC’s case involved buttons, search icons, and client sentiment tools.
L O W - L E V E L C O M P O N E N T S
Mid Level Components
Mid-level blocks are more advanced components that are built by combining low-level components and primitives. These usually end up being used in the final UI designs. It is vital to review each component in this stage to ensure consistency across modules.
M I D - L E V E L C O M P O N E N T S
UI Designs
With having an expansive collection of mid-level components, final designs are created by a simple drag and drop of already made custom modules.
F I N A L U I E M A I L S
Results
The creation of an email design system has led to an increase in time and productivity per email and has vastly improved the consistency of designs across all teams.
50 percent increase in productivity
2 hours gained per email
Learnings
Prioritize the task
When starting the design system it first seemed logical to use whatever spare time there was between projects to work on it however, this resulted in inconsistent progress. After some time it was learnt that a design system could no be treated as a side piece of work but as an official project to build a better future for our work.
Ebook Cover Designs
Was tasked to design a set of four ebook covers for social media marketing. The challenge was to keep a consistent house style across all designs to create a trustworthy brand image. It was proposed to have a distinct line drawing illustration representing each ebook to reflect this.
Social Ads
Consistently created assets for Linkedin used as a platform to give a face to the employees and those wanting to work with CMC. Designed creatives for Twitter to help build the brand name, increase follower count and advertise products.
