Many tried. I finally succeeded.

Email design at LinkedIn is like a time capsule of all the design system visuals they've ever produced. Internally, it's known as "the wild west," so when LinkedIn underwent a new brand change, the Growth team decided to revamp email as well, leading to an increase in email and platform metrics.

Goal: Create a unified, accessible email design system which is flexible enough to work across campaigns and product emails.

My responsibilites

Collaborate with Design Systems and marketers to create a unified email design system which is flexible enough to work for campaigns and product emails
Consult Security and Legal to ensure header and footer are compliant
Partner with owners of high-value / high-send emails to test the updated design system
Train and educate marketers and designers about accessible email design, the new visual design system, and designing in dark mode
Created a dedicated email Slack channel to address any system feedback, work with teams to add more components to the system, and review in-progress designs
Review finalized email designs through JIRA prior to launch
Tools used: Figma, Litmus

Process

Research industry best practices
Identify top 10 emails LinkedIn sends to test and validate the new system
Identify top components used within Marketing in order to ensure coverage
Iterate, iterate, iterate
Work with select partner teams to redesign top emails to search for any gaps in the component offering and overall style guide
Present the project to design leads and the VP of Design for feedback
Create a style guide, component library, and templates for designers to use (in Figma)
Build a new email training guide with Digital Marketing Operations leads, to educate marketers about email best practices and how to use the new design system