The need to deliver seamless brand experiences across all digital touchpoints is stronger than ever, causing havoc for brand guardians that do not have modern design solutions in place. It’s time to say goodbye to brand playbooks and static style guides, and hello to design systems – the best practice solution to manage design at scale, allowing for efficiency and consistency of branding across your entire digital estate.

What is a design system?

A design system is a scalable online library of reusable components, guided by clear standards, which can be assembled together to build any number of digital assets or applications. 

Design systems bring order to chaos. The digital brand catalogue creates a more structured way to design and build digital products and solutions that guarantee brand adherence. Hosted online, curated by designers and coded by developers, they empower teams to rapidly build digital assets and products with ease while ensuring brand governance; reducing the speed to market and ensuring a consistent user experience across every touchpoint of your digital estate.

Implementing a design system

Implementing a design system is a long-term solution that helps to prepare businesses for the future. They are set up to evolve over time, preventing the need to reinvent the wheel of defining brand principles every time a new project starts.

Design system projects are the perfect fit to run concurrently with a website or app re-platforming or rebranding project. This way of working has become ingrained within DEPT®’s project teams and is a service we’re proud to be supporting our clients with as part of their digital transformations.

When partnering with London Marathon Events on a branding and digital improvement project, DEPT®  simultaneously developed a design system, creating a dynamic, scalable and future-ready brand that will ensure longevity via creative quality and consistency.

Specialist design system agency

Despite the name, it takes more than a team of designers to develop a successful design system. An ideal team is made up of UI specialists, front-end developers, content strategists, product managers and UX researchers – to name a few. 

That’s why working with a specialist design systems agency like DEPT® helps to bring all of these people together into one cohesive unit to deliver a future-forward solution. An agency can also provide fresh perspectives and really elevate the project to ensure its success. 

For Heinz, a clear, robust, flexible and accessible design system was created to bring structure and consistency to their refreshed web presence. And following its rebrand, Douglas turned to dept to implement a design system that would serve as the future “single source of truth”, ensuring brand consistency across all touchpoints. All elements are created within the design system, described in detail and made accessible to employees. 

The DEPT® approach

DEPT® has implemented design systems for a range of global brands, including eBay, Heinz and London Marathon Events. We understand the true impact a design system can have on a brand in an ever-evolving world. 

Working with a full-service agency gives you access to our experts across every department that plays a key role in creating a beautiful and effective design system – whether that’s content, UX research or brand identity, we’ve got you covered. 

Get in touch today to discuss how your business may benefit from a design system and how our team of creative experts can help visually connect your brand’s digital estate.