I partnered with a small cross-functional team to lead a complete overhaul of my organization’s email system, transforming a fragmented set of templates into a unified, scalable platform. Previously, Marketing Operations relied on numerous disconnected templates built with inconsistent code. This lack of compatibility limited creativity, slowed production, and made even small customization requests disproportionately time-consuming.
Representing the Brand team, I served as an email experience design consultant, ensuring the new system aligned with our global brand and sub-brands while also meeting usability and accessibility needs. Leveraging my background in UI/UX and two decades of creative experience, I guided the project from research through rollout.
We began by auditing existing communications and surveying content creators to identify their most-needed tools. From this, we developed a responsive HTML/CSS component library of reusable modules—buttons, headers, hero sections, tables, and more—specifically engineered for the unique challenges of email clients. Each component was extensively tested in Litmus to ensure cross-client compatibility, mobile-first responsiveness, and accessibility compliance.
To support adoption, I created a comprehensive component guide, complete with visual references, copywriting considerations, and usage best practices. Pre-built master templates for newsletters, updates, event promotions, and transactional messages helped simplify production and expand creative options.
While the design system itself isn’t overly flashy, it has proven transformative: cutting development time and effort by half while unlocking more creativity and flexibility than we’ve ever had in email. The result is a consistent, branded, and efficient system that empowers teams and delivers a better experience to a global audience.
