Situation
Task
Action
Result
Within one of Africa’s largest financial institutions, Standard Bank, cross-functional product and development teams were working across multiple design systems, component libraries, and code languages without a single centralised source of truth.
As a result, designers and developers frequently spent time searching for existing components or recreating patterns from scratch. This created inefficiencies across teams and led to inconsistent digital experiences for clients, reducing overall design quality, scalability, and implementation speed.
Within the Global Markets environment specifically, there was a growing need to improve collaboration, streamline workflows, and establish more consistent standards across products and platforms.
As the Lead Product Designer within the Global Markets team, I was tasked with helping create a scalable solution that could improve consistency, reduce duplication of effort, and accelerate both design and development workflows.
The objective was to establish a more unified and accessible design system approach that would support cross-functional collaboration while aligning with the bank’s broader visual language and technical requirements.
This involved creating a centralised repository for reusable design and coded components, defining standardisation methods, and improving the way teams accessed, shared, and implemented digital assets across projects.
Led the design and development of a scalable "mini" design system that served as a foundation for broader design system standardisation within the Global Markets environment.
I collaborated closely with designers, developers, consultants and stakeholders to align requirements, research best practices, audit existing components and identify opportunities to improve consistency, scalability and collaboration.
I developed reusable design patterns, standardisation methods and a centralised repository that enabled teams to access shared components, documentation and implementation guidance while supporting interactive prototyping and developer handover.
I also helped validate components across devices and contributed to evolving the underlying code structure to improve flexibility, responsiveness and long-term maintainability.
01
Successfully delivered a scalable and collaborative design system foundation that improved efficiency, consistency, and cross-functional alignment within the Global Markets team.
02
The work helped reduce duplicated effort across teams, accelerated design and development workflows, and created a more reliable and cohesive digital experience for clients.
03
The initiative also contributed to broader design system thinking within the organisation and played a role in influencing the evolution of the bank’s wider visual language and component ecosystem.
04
The project received internal recognition, including a Standard Bank award for Best Use of Colour, Layout, and Typography.
05
Additionally, the solution significantly improved remote collaboration between consultants, internal teams, designers, and developers by creating a shared and accessible system for design and implementation workflows.