Raquel Marini | UX Designer

Implementing a design culture and a scalable Design System

At Minds Digital, I served as the company’s first and only designer. I faced a landscape of inconsistent digital products and a lack of visual guidelines. I built a Design System from scratch to scale design across the organization and establish a more mature, collaborative culture between design, development, and marketing.

My role: I led the creation of the Design System, redesigned the company’s visual identity, aligned all digital products, worked directly with cross-functional teams, and ensured the system was adopted in a practical, collaborative way in day-to-day workflows.

Company

Minds Digital

Year

2022

Role

Product Designer,
UX Researcher,
Lead Designer

🎯 Project objectives

• Ensure visual consistency across the company’s products
• Reduce rework and speed up delivery time
• Align design with brand identity and all other company channels
• Foster a design-centered culture focused on collaboration and standardization

🚧 Challenges faced

• Lack of UI guidelines and standards
• Products and interfaces with inconsistent visuals
• Communication gaps between teams
• Stakeholders concerned about the time required for restructuring

✅ Results

• Reduced interface delivery time thanks to reusable components
• 100% adoption of the Design System by all squads and product teams
• First company-wide Design System created and documented in an accessible, collaborative way
• 3+ teams (tech, marketing & product) working together using the same visual standards

🛠 Execution

🔍 Diagnosis and strategy
• Mapped visual inconsistencies across products
• Gathered requirements from dev teams and stakeholders
• Defined a phased implementation strategy

🎨 Redesign as a starting point
• Began by redesigning the company’s core product: the authentication dashboard
• Used this interface as the foundation for Design System standards

🧱 Building the Design System
• Created in Figma:  
• Color palette (based on the brand identity I revamped)  
• Typography and scales  
• Icons, sizes & grid system  
• Reusable components with clear documentation

🤝 Team engagement
• Introduced the system to dev and marketing teams
• Demonstrated how to use components day-to-day
• Reinforced benefits of agility, standardization & maintenance

🔍 Diagnosis and strategy
Mapped visual inconsistencies across products
Gathered requirements from dev teams and stakeholders
Defined a phased implementation strategy

🎨 Redesign as a starting point
Began by redesigning the company’s core product: the authentication dashboard
Used this interface as the foundation for Design System standards

🧱 Building the Design System
Created in Figma:  
• Color palette (based on the brand identity I revamped)  
• Typography and scales  
• Icons, sizes & grid system  
• Reusable components with clear documentation

🤝 Team engagement
Introduced the system to dev and marketing teams
Demonstrated how to use components day-to-day
Reinforced benefits of agility, standardization & maintenance

📊 Metrics and impact

Indicator

Time to deliver interfaces

Significant reduction thanks
to reusable components

Internal adoption of Design System

100% of squads adopted
and applied

Alignment between product
and communication

Unified visuals across app,
site and marketing

Stakeholder engagement

Increased collaboration
between design & tech

💬 Learnings

Leading the creation of a design culture from scratch taught me the power of structure. Building a Design System is more than organizing colors and buttons, it’s about creating a common language across teams and instilling design confidence in decision-making.

This project taught me how to balance strategic vision with practical deliverables and to serve as the bridge between technology, product, and branding.