Children’s Email Design System

Role: Lead Designer

Year: 2023-2025

Description

When emails are a lifeline for communication, inconsistency can quietly erode trust. At Children’s, every message—from donor outreach to patient updates—needed to reflect the same care and clarity that define the brand. But behind the scenes, email production had become a slow, fragmented process bogged down by inefficiencies and visual inconsistencies. My challenge was to design a unified, modular email system that empowered teams to move faster while strengthening brand cohesion across every audience touchpoint.


Process

As Senior Digital Designer, I led the effort to reimagine the email design experience from the ground up. My approach combined brand alignment, modular thinking, and technical precision to create a system that could grow with the organization.

Discovery & Audit

I began with a comprehensive audit of existing emails, cataloging inconsistencies in structure, color, typography, and hierarchy. This helped identify recurring pain points and opportunities for consolidation.

System Architecture

I developed a modular component library—a flexible set of building blocks like headers, hero banners, calls-to-action, and content sections. Each module was built for reusability, ensuring that any team member could assemble a new email without starting from scratch.

Problem

Before this initiative, the email landscape at Children’s was disjointed and labor-intensive.

  • Inconsistent branding: Each department designed emails differently, with no cohesive system for typography, buttons, or structure.

  • Slow and repetitive workflows: Designers and marketers were rebuilding the same components over and over again, wasting hours on tasks that could be automated.

  • Error-prone coding: Emails often broke across clients like Outlook, leading to QA bottlenecks and last-minute fixes.

  • Limited scalability: Without reusable patterns, launching urgent campaigns was slow and reactive.

  • Team dependency: Non-technical staff couldn’t make simple changes, relying on design and development for every send.

The tension was clear—teams needed a flexible system that allowed for speed, consistency, and reliability, without sacrificing creativity or brand integrity.

Design & Prototyping

I established responsive design rules that ensured consistent rendering across all devices and email clients. Every element was optimized for accessibility and tested in real-world scenarios to guarantee pixel-perfect results.

Collaboration & Enablement

Collaboration with developers and content creators was central to success. I provided clear documentation, visual guides, and templates that enabled non-technical teams to create branded, responsive emails confidently—reducing their dependency on design resources.

modular email design system

Impact

The new Email Design System transformed how teams at Children’s communicated:

  • 50% faster production of new campaigns through reusable components.

  • Dramatic reduction in rendering errors and QA turnaround time.

  • Consistent, on-brand visuals across every department and audience.

  • Empowered content teams who could now build and customize emails independently.

  • A scalable framework ready to evolve with future campaigns and organizational needs.

The system not only improved efficiency—it redefined how the brand spoke to its audiences, aligning internal workflows with the same empathy and excellence that define Children’s mission.