Scaling design across three insurance brands
Building a unified and scalable design system across SantéVet, Bulle Bleue, and Jim and Joe.
- Client
- SantéVet, Bulle Bleue, Jim & Joe
- Year
- 2024
- Role
- Lead Product Designer
- Duration
- 4 months
Context
SantéVet operates multiple pet insurance brands, each with different products and audiences: SantéVet, Bulle Bleue, and Jim and Joe.
Design foundations were inconsistent across brands, creating inefficiencies and fragmented user experiences that slowed both design and development across the group.
The problem
Inconsistent UI patterns across brands slowed down design and development workflows. The lack of reusable components meant teams were rebuilding the same elements from scratch, and misalignment between teams made collaboration difficult and delivery slow.
Discovery
Methods
- Audit of existing UI patterns and components across all three brands
- Identification of shared vs brand-specific design elements
- Interviews with design, development, and marketing teams across brands
- Mapping of inconsistencies, duplication, and inefficiencies across interfaces
What I found
Each brand had developed its own visual language independently, resulting in significant duplication and inconsistency. There was no single source of truth for typography, spacing, or color across brands, making it difficult to maintain or scale any of them. Teams were solving the same problems repeatedly, in isolation.
Key insights
Shared foundations, distinct identities
A multi-brand system works when the foundation is shared and clearly defined, while brand-specific tokens and overrides handle visual differentiation without duplicating work.
Tokens before components
Defining typography, spacing, and color tokens first makes it possible to build components that flex across brands without rebuilding them.
Documentation drives adoption
A design system without clear usage guidelines struggles to be adopted. Making the system easy to understand is as important as making it complete.
Strategy
Unify design across brands through a shared foundation, create reusable components that flex across brand contexts, improve collaboration between design and development, and build a scalable system that supports all three brands.
Product decisions
- 01Define a shared token layer covering typography, spacing, and color across all brands
- 02Build reusable components that adapt to each brand via token overrides
- 03Document usage guidelines to enable independent adoption across teams
- 04Align product and brand interfaces under the shared system
- 05Ensure compatibility with existing development environments across the group
Execution
Built a shared design system in Figma for three insurance brands, covering foundations, reusable components, usage documentation, and cross-team alignment.
What shipped
- 01Defined shared typography, spacing, and color tokens across SantéVet, Bulle Bleue, and Jim and Joe
- 02Created reusable components usable and adaptable across all three brands
- 03Documented usage guidelines and component specifications for each team
- 04Aligned product and brand interfaces under the shared design language
- 05Enabled consistent, faster design and development workflows across the group
Impact
Improved consistency across three insurance brands, faster design and development workflows, better cross-team collaboration, and a scalable design foundation ready for future growth.