SkimmShopping
/
Product Design
/
Design Systems
/
UI
Social Template Library
A local design system to optimize social production, resources, and output
THE TEAM & PROJECT LENGTH /
Lead Designer 👋, Senior Brand Manager, and Senior Brand Designer. 1 month.
BACKGROUND /
When a brand refresh was imminent, a new social design system became essential to implement updates and ensure consistency across all channels and sub-brands. The design system also needed to be user-friendly and accessible to non-designers, as the social team had to post quickly and efficiently. Collaborating with brand designers and social editors, I led efforts to build a comprehensive library of templates that optimized resources and streamlined the production of cohesive, high-quality content.
Business goals /
Reduce dependency on the creative team to produce new assets on demand (too short deadline, with few resources)
Collaborate with the brand and creative designers to create templates, flexible and easy enough for the social team to produce themselves
Educate and train both designers and social editors to use Figma, build components, and export templates without breaking away from the design system
COURSE OF ACTION /
Audit and assessment
Understanding design constraints
Pressure testing and iteration
global vs local libraries /
Before jumping straight into each individual social template libraries, I first had to pull styles and components that were foundational to both master and sub-brand.
local base components /
After setting up the global library, I then went ahead and created local libraries for each of the brands. Throughout the entire process, I had the designers pressure test so that we can smooth out most of the kinks before sharing with the social team.
system launch & education /
After leading demos and education sessions, I stressed that the feedback loop was never closed. If there were any problems with the templates that caused any disruption or an editor to break the component, I needed to be informed so that we can work on improving each template.
results & final thoughts /