David Jones
Streamlining Email Marketing with a Design System
OBJECTIVE
Build a flexible, easy-to-use design system that:
Build a flexible, easy-to-use design system that:
- Keeps branding consistent across all campaigns
- Speeds up design and build time
- Works for juniors and seniors alike
- Reduces revision rounds in both design and dev
CHALLENGES
- Inconsistent design across campaigns
- Slow, clunky Photoshop-based process
- No centralised asset library
- Brand standards easily lost across different designs
- Low collaboration, high double-handling
INDUSTRY
Retail, Fashion, Marketing
PROJECT SCOPE
Design system for email marketing - average of 15 email sends per week to 3 million subscribers.
BACKGROUND
The David Jones email team was juggling tight deadlines, multiple campaigns, and designers of mixed experience — and it showed. Emails were inconsistent, on-brand moments were being missed, and too much time was spent rebuilding the same elements over and over.
Retail, Fashion, Marketing
PROJECT SCOPE
Design system for email marketing - average of 15 email sends per week to 3 million subscribers.
BACKGROUND
The David Jones email team was juggling tight deadlines, multiple campaigns, and designers of mixed experience — and it showed. Emails were inconsistent, on-brand moments were being missed, and too much time was spent rebuilding the same elements over and over.
Solution
Standard Templates
Created 13 master templates for campaigns like seasonal promos, sales events, and invites — plus used their parts modularly to build custom layouts faster, without breaking consistency.
Asset Repository
Icons, logos and recurring design elements were centralised in one Figma file, so no more digging through folders or duplicating files.
Created 13 master templates for campaigns like seasonal promos, sales events, and invites — plus used their parts modularly to build custom layouts faster, without breaking consistency.
Asset Repository
Icons, logos and recurring design elements were centralised in one Figma file, so no more digging through folders or duplicating files.
Transition to Figma
Moved from Photoshop to Figma for real-time collaboration, shared libraries, and faster iteration.
Design Principles
I started with clear rules for layout, typography, colour, and email-specific elements like headers and footers — designed for flexibility across categories and segments.
Component Library
Built a library of reusable modules: headers, footers, buttons, typography styles and content blocks. Each component was built to be flexible, accessible, and easy to mix and match.
Moved from Photoshop to Figma for real-time collaboration, shared libraries, and faster iteration.
Design Principles
I started with clear rules for layout, typography, colour, and email-specific elements like headers and footers — designed for flexibility across categories and segments.
Component Library
Built a library of reusable modules: headers, footers, buttons, typography styles and content blocks. Each component was built to be flexible, accessible, and easy to mix and match.
Results
- Efficiency up ~80%: Dramatically reduced time spent designing and building
- Mistakes down ~95%: Reusable components meant fewer errors and less back-and-forth
- Consistent branding: Every send looked polished and cohesive
- Faster onboarding: New team members picked up the system quickly
- Improved workflow: Less confusion, clearer processes, better collaboration across teams
Added Bonuses
For major campaigns like Black Friday, I pre-built 26 blank email templates in Figma, complete with build notes. Content and copy were dropped directly into the designs, removing the need for spreadsheets and simplifying handover. This improved planning, collaboration and execution speed across the board.
We also adapted seasonal colour palettes from VM print assets to digital, while maintaining accessibility. These were added as styles in the library alongside event-specific headline fonts — giving campaigns like Christmas and Mother’s Day their own flair, while staying on-brand.
Conclusion
This design system transformed how the team delivered emails — turning chaos into consistency across high-volume, high-pressure marketing work. It saved time, sharpened branding, supported cross-team collaboration, and delivered big wins in both performance and budget, all while making the process smoother for everyone involved.