Opportunity

When I arrived in G-P, it was clear that the existing design system was not fit for purpose. Its adoption was scrappy and it hadn't been updated in years, leaving both designers and engineers frustrated. I realised that establishing a vibrant design system with on-going resourcing would solve a lot of problems within the product development lifecycle. Little did I realise it would take three years of determination to get there.

Grass routes

I started with a grass-roots approach. My first priority was to get our own house in order – taking the time to . This would help us remove a lot of the inconsistencies and streamline our design process. Her enthusiasm and attention to detail was the perfect match and together we audited the existing library, refined components and began building out the library.

Example of the detailed auditing we did on the existing components.

Alongside that I continued to look for people that understood the benefits of a good design system. Over the coming months I built a group of volunteers across brand, product, and engineering. All people enthused by the prospects of a world-class design system. We met frequently and composed a comprehensive pitch for resources that we presented to senior leadership.

Excerpt from our pitch for on-going resources.

When opportunity knocks

One of my skills as a leader is recognising opportunities. In a company with limited resources, you need to be able to jump on these opportunities and use them to your advantage. Our first opportunity came in 2023, when the marketing team announced they would be rebranding the company. This was our opportunity to cement our evolved Figma library into code. Our approach quickly demonstrated how design system thinking could enable efficient and scalable engineering.

Example of our "abstract" approach to colour.

Our second great opportunity came in 2024 when engineering announced a complete re-architecture of the platform. Because some of the engineering leads had been involved in our grass route efforts, it was natural that they positioned the design system as a foundational pillar of the new platform. This finally opened the door to resources, leading to the formation of a dedicated multi-discipline design system team in 2025!

Example from our new ZeroHeight component library where we can host Figma and code assets together.