How to Scale Design and Transform Your Brand Experience

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FOREWORD
Just what the world needs, another content piece about scaling
design. But don’t stop reading just yet.
Wondering why I’m writing about scaling design now?
Firstly, digital sameness has taken hold and it keeps getting

harder for customers to differentiate one brand from another.
Secondly, DPDK has spent more than 20 years in the digital
industry and our team has worked on hundreds of impactful
design projects for brands like Nike, Heineken, and Peugeot.
And thirdly, we’ve witnessed a huge change because of
Covid-19, which has made digital experiences and therefore
design more important than ever.
I reckon three reasons will do.
Design enables brands to change, evolve, grow - basically

survive and flourish. Did you know that brands who excel at
design grow revenues and shareholder returns at nearly twice
the rate of their industry peers, according to McKinsey? As a
Foreword
brand, you can’t escape it, and this can become a problem
when a lot of it is poor.
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There are more than 500,000 brands worldwide. How many
examples do you know of brands that are nailing design?
Of course, you think of the most iconic product and service
designs first: the iPhone, Google’s homepage, the Fitbit, the
Polaroid camera, Amazon’s user experience, or National
Geographic’s digital reinvention. But what about the rest? I
would be pleasantly surprised if you can name more than ten.
These days, where customers take the function of a product or

service for granted, the emphasis shifts to form. The homes we
live in, the clothes we wear, and the cars we drive have to look
and feel right as much as they have to perform.
And this doesn’t apply to offline channels only. When a font on

a website is difficult to read, product visuals don’t stand out,
or you can’t easily find what you’re looking for, there’s a high
chance that you’ll become frustrated and take your business
elsewhere.
Having strong design capabilities as a brand could not be more

Foreword
crucial. After all, the function of design is to promote your brand

and sustain a competitive advantage.
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In the words of John Hegarty, one of the world’s most famous
advertising creatives, “You could say that today we’re all in the
fashion business.”
What’s interesting is that design has become way too important

to be left to a single department. The worlds of technology and
design have blended and are having a profound effect on the
performance of any brand. The collaboration between these
two disciplines can literally make or break your product or
service.
This became painfully clear when the Covid-19 wrecking ball hit.
Brands with a strong digital presence reaped the benefits and
those who thought their digital transformation would be years
away suddenly woke up. The significance of a great digital
experience is no longer debated in the boardroom. Instead,
the focus shifted to digital growth without losing what makes
an experience great. In other words, maintaining quality while
scaling.
Foreword
Let me make it clear that scaling isn’t only about getting bigger.
More campaigns, content, and digital touchpoints are just more
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when they don’t reflect your brand, stand out, or add value to
the experience you’re trying to create.
The great thing about technology is that it’s easy to scale

quickly and the bad thing about technology is that it’s easy to
scale quickly. Sometimes it takes less effort to simply launch
another platform or app than to figure out how you’re going to
differentiate the experience and keep your branding consistent.
But feeling the urge to follow the crowd without being clear
on how you’re going to manage quality is asking for problems
further down the road.
That’s why in this guide, I’ll share what makes a customer

experience (CX) great, why you need to rethink the way you
design products and experiences, how to successfully set up
a design infrastructure from which you can scale, the impact
of this on brand performance, and how the Chief Marketing
Officer (CMO) and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) can work
effectively together. This is a guide that every C-suite member
Foreword
who values ideas and creativity should read.
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CONTENTS
1 Introduction
2 CX is king
3 Leading with creative transformation
4 Design Center of Excellence
5 Rethinking design
6 For now and the future

INTRODUCTION
Probably one of the first things that popped into your mind
about scaling design is design systems. Design systems
came into this world to help us deal with increasingly complex
digital ecosystems that contain more products, services, and
communication channels than ever before.
Design systems are nothing new and seem to be everywhere

these days. Google, Airbnb, Spotify - everybody has or is
working on a design system.
But I’m not here to talk about design systems. There are far
too many resources available on that already. I want to take it
up a notch and move beyond them. Because for brands with
comprehensive digital ecosystems, a single design system -
or even multiple for that matter - is not going to be enough to
successfully scale.
I’ll take my chances and bet that you’re dealing with brand
inconsistencies in your CX. When multiple teams from different
1 - Introduction
departments and regions with competing objectives work on

a range of products, it becomes challenging to keep fonts,
colors, photography, illustrations, layouts, design components,
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and sometimes even your logo consistent across touchpoints.
The moment it becomes manual, you’re at risk of running into
inconsistencies.
Not to mention the time and resources that are wasted in

recreating similar design elements and components over and
over again. What could have been time to focus on doing what
your team does best: creating the best possible CX.
What these inconsistencies reflect are fragmentations in your

teams and departments. To deliver exceptional design while
you launch product after product and campaign after campaign,
you need a solid foundation to scale from. An infrastructure
that crosses departmental boundaries and involves the whole
organization.
To set such a design infrastructure up, the entire C-suite needs

to be aligned. Which can be challenging, but the benefits in
return are huge. Improved collaboration, faster workflows,
1 - Introduction
ability to scale, and a consistent CX is only the beginning. What

you’ll end up with is an entire creative transformation. Let’s dive
right in.
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CX IS KING
CX is one of the most popular terms in digital, with Google

searches nearly tripling in the last decade and hashtags like
#CX being thrown around like crazy. Across industries, brands
have increasingly invested time and resources to design,
manage, and improve their CX. The secret is out, everyone
knows how important CX is for brand growth and differentiation.
CX as we know it stands for customer experience, which is

essentially your customers’ perception of their experience with
your brand. It communicates why you are in business, who you
are, what you stand for, and how you are different compared
to all those other brands out there. It’s a combination of your
unique brand identity, innovative products, and engaging
content.
In a world of chaos, CX is your anchor. At least that’s what it’s

supposed to be.
CX has become stagnant during the past few years. Many

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brands are struggling to improve and differentiate. And while

80% of brands believe that they offer a superior CX, only 8% of
their customers agree.
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There’s a reason why brands are having difficulties: most are
dealing with increasingly complex digital ecosystems that are
hard to manage and have trouble differentiating their CX and
keeping it consistent across touchpoints.
How customers interact and journey through your brand’s

touchpoints will determine how they remember your brand and
whether or not they will come back again. When you don’t offer
a memorable or consistent experience, you risk the loyalty of
your customers.
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An exceptional and unified
CX is the only way to truly
differentiate as a brand.
Why consistency matters
This is probably not the first time you’re hearing that consistency
in CX matters. But why exactly is it so important?
One of the best explanations I’ve come across is from market

researcher Craig Borowski. He describes that you can compare
your customer’s impression of your brand with that of a mosaic.
Similar to a mosaic, your brand is made up of many individual
touchpoints. Whenever a customer faces a bigger decision,
like abandoning your brand for that of your competitor, it’s the
overall mosaic impression that convinces them to stay.
Inconsistent experiences cause cracks in the mosaic and

confuse your customers, causing them to form a disjointed
impression of your brand. Over time those inconsistencies
shatter the mosaic and erode customer loyalty. Don’t be fooled,
because even the smallest discrepancies can make the mosaic
crumble…
Just look what happened to the once widely popular Skype

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brand. When Microsoft acquired Skype in 2011, the brand went

through many rebrands, redesigns, and software updates. It’s
been a bumpy ride, to say the least.
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They didn’t dot their i’s and cross their t’s consistently, and at
one point they even had different logo versions appear on
mobile and desktop.
To build trust and a positive reputation, your CX has to be

consistent on many levels, including visually. This consistent
look and feel goes beyond your logo - it’s about how you make
your customer feel. In every interaction, your brand is evaluated.
The words of Andrew Grant couldn’t ring more true, “You never
get a second chance to make a first impression.”
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Consistency versus scalability
Most CMOs and CTOs I’ve met understand the significance

of CX consistency. The real challenge lies in maintaining
consistency when your brand is growing.
Digital ecosystems have become more complex than

ever before. It’s not only a website or an app anymore
that requires attention. There are an increased number
of digital touchpoints, communication channels, and
platforms that need to be looked after. At the same time,
teams are expected to do more in less time and have to
work at maximum productivity to keep up.
Then of course, no team is an island. Those same teams

have to work with multiple departments, often across
different countries and time zones, to get the job done.
This makes speaking the same language and keeping
everyone on the same page progressively more difficult.
When you think about all that, it’s not surprising that
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inconsistencies spring up like mushrooms. The C-suite

tries its best to keep them at a minimum and manage the
damage, but it’s usually out of their control.
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I often hear, “There are formal brand guidelines in place,
but making them stick company-wide is a full-time job,” “We
have a brand design system, and multiple product design
systems, yet somehow teams don’t know how to actually
use them,” or “If I just had more manpower and budget I
could fix those inconsistencies.”
The end result is a consistency versus scalability story

that we tell ourselves and keep repeating to colleagues.
But adding more resources and budget isn’t going to be
enough - we need to work smarter, not necessarily harder.
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The creative experience
Creativity has always been crucial to a brand’s success,

and it’s of the utmost importance in CX too. In his book,
Hegarty on Creativity: There Are No Rules, John Hegarty
describes how creativity touches almost every aspect of
our lives.
“Creativity touches all our lives in a thousand different

ways, from the clothes we buy to the buildings we live in,
from the food we eat to the cars we drive. Creativity invents,
perfects, and defines our world. It explains and entertains
us.” He then goes on to say, “And its impact is only getting
stronger as time goes on. It’s not surprising then that we’re
always being told that the future is creative!”
I’m wondering though, how creative that future really is.
When I’m ordering dinner on one of my food delivery apps,

it’s difficult to distinguish them from one other: they all look
and feel the same. The same applies when I’m booking
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flights online or a hotel room. Digital sameness is plaguing

brands and customers are struggling to differentiate one
brand from another.
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I would argue that brands and the people that work there
are actually becoming less creative, even though they
need to be more creative to stand out. This is backed by
reports from Forrester and McKinsey who also reveal that
creative brands deliver better business results and have
above-average revenue growth.
But how can it be that we’re not that creative anymore while
the digital world is an almost limitless source of inspiration?
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The slow death of creativity
In a quest to master CX and digital transformation, the

C-suite has invested and adapted technology at an
unprecedented rate. Fear of failing to keep up had tech
spending skyrocketing, with the global MarTech industry
now estimated to be worth a whopping $344.8 billion.
Technology is prioritized over creativity and the effects are

showing: digital sameness is causing customers to tune
out. But it’s not only our tech focus that gave rise to this
phenomenon.
Our digital activities are growing, from new product

launches and marketing campaigns all the way to app
releases and customer support - there’s always something
in the works.
This also means that designers, developers, and

marketers are in hot demand and being pulled in all kinds
of directions. Localizing promotional materials for different
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markets, updating a website with new branding requests,

or nitty-gritty design tweaks to ad campaigns seem to be
the order of the day.
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Whether we like it or not, teams are spending a significant
proportion of their time on mundane and repetitive tasks.
Instead of flexing their creative muscles, they’re focusing
on low-value work. Not exactly the type of activity that
sparks creativity and challenges them to do their very best.
Count busy work schedules and a constant stream of

incoming information on top, and you’ve got yourself
signed up for a slow and painful death of creativity.
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LEADING WITH CREATIVE
TRANSFORMATION
Many C-level executives run digital transformations or CX

initiatives as business-as-usual programs with boxes to tick
on their checklists. Don’t make that mistake.
Creativity holds the ticket to a better tomorrow and is key to

the success you’ll have as a brand. You can’t differentiate
your brand and inspire customers without being creative.
But creativity doesn’t just happen when you write it on a list
of objectives or gather your team for brainstorming.
Unfortunately, creativity is not a topping that you decide

to sprinkle on top of your ice cream. It bubbles up from
below: it’s in your culture, your processes, and above all,
3 - Leading with creative transformation
your people.
To encourage and promote creative thinking, the C-suite

has to embrace creativity and make it part of their strategic
priorities. Now it’s often overshadowed by technology and
the immediate rewards of productivity and efficiency. But
building a more creative team, department, and ultimately
organization starts at the top.
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Create the conditions to let
creativity flourish.
The age of and
A successful CX is not created with one component

alone. It’s not a process you follow, the website or app
you launch, a piece of technology you implement, nor the
communications you send out. It’s all of those things and
more working together.
This is why I’ve been using the word “and” a lot when it
comes to describing CX, rather than this or that.
Your customers are looking for a unique and engaging

experience that they can share with others, but they also
expect everything to work properly and be consistent too.
Or should I say demand? There’s no tolerance for websites
that don’t load within 3 seconds, apps that are difficult to

navigate, or inconsistencies in webpage designs.
We’re living in the age of and, where combining function

and form is no longer optional. It’s all about:
Scale and consistency
Creativity and technology
Engaging and seamless experiences
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The tensions of the digital world have a tendency to
push us into zero-sum thinking. For one side to win, the
other has to lose: “I’m unable to scale my team’s output
without experiencing brand inconsistencies and sacrificing
quality,” “We can’t make investments in technology while
also wanting our CX to be more creative,” or “Let’s first
focus on creating a smooth experience, we can always
come back to the more engaging part later.”
But the success you’ll have as a brand lies in navigating

that friction rather than clinging to the “either” or the “or.”
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Scaling creativity
One of the first questions that pop up whenever I’m having

a conversation about scaling creative output, is “Can you
actually scale creativity?” The answer is yes.
Don’t get me wrong, creativity is hard to grasp, let alone

manage. It’s often seen as something mysterious and
reduced down to a brilliant idea produced by a single
person. Like Steve Jobs, who gets most of the credit for
Apple’s success, even though he had a team of A+ players
behind him.
But there are certain conditions you can create to foster

and scale creativity. Take Pixar for example, which employs
more than 1,200 people and is probably one of the most

creative organizations out there.
“It takes a large number of people from different disciplines

who need to work together effectively to be truly creative
and solve a great many problems,” describes Ed Catmull,
co-founder of Pixar Animation Studios and president of
Pixar Animation and Disney Animation.
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Part of Pixar’s creative success lies in building the right
processes and dismantling the natural barriers that divide
departments.
Tech and marketing teams are notorious for having

a love-hate relationship, and there’s often a constant
tension between departments. Marketing teams are under
pressure to launch products, generate great content, and
drive sales, while tech needs to support and develop
marketing’s roadmap. They’re heavily dependent on each
other for success.
To scale creative output across both departments, improve

collaboration, and maintain consistency, you need a solid

foundation and processes in place to build from. More on
that next.
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DESIGN CENTER OF
EXCELLENCE
Delivering exceptional design time after time requires a

strong foundation from which you can scale. Whenever
scaling design is discussed, the conversation often turns
to design systems.
Design systems are a logical move for brands that are

reusing design work and want to scale their design efforts.
And rightfully so. Brands with mature design systems
provide a more consistent CX, have higher customer
satisfaction rates, and get products to market faster, says
Forrester.
A design system boils down to a centralized library

consisting of a cohesive set of functional and reusable
4 - Design Center of Excellence
design elements and components. From patterns,

brushes, shapes, illustrations, and typography to
instructions for sizing, spacing, coded buttons, and
forms. Guidelines, values, and production files are also
an important part of a design system.
Design systems according to DPDK
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While design systems can definitely be a blessing, for
bigger organizations they can also be a curse. Typically,
a design system caters to one specific product. As your
product portfolio grows, so will the number of design
systems. The more design systems you have, the more
difficult it becomes to effectively manage and make the
most out of them.
Design systems are often treated as separate islands.

Different departments work with their own design systems,
and these systems aren’t always connected to one another.
But unfortunately, we don’t work in Hawaii or the Bahamas.
A design system alone is not enough. You need a single

source of truth in place that crosses departmental
boundaries and connects each design system to the other,

across subdesign systems and platforms. That way teams
can create consistent and on-brand designs, speed up
time to market, and improve collaboration no matter which
system they’re working with.
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Enter, a design infrastructure, or what I like to call a design
center of excellence.
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Why you need one
Not to be confused with a design system, a design center

of excellence represents a place in an organization where
the highest design standards are shaped and maintained.
The core team there is composed of highly skilled design
experts and specialists, as the word “excellence” indicates.
It’s best not to see them as simply another design team

because they work across business units and product
lines to share knowledge and lead the way.
This team works on building your design infrastructure,

which is essentially the underpinning of your design
ecosystem. It contains all your design files in a hierarchical
structure, from components libraries and guideline
documents to production and design system evolution
files.
Think of it as a Google Maps that guides and directs teams

through your growing design network…
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Google Maps 2.0
Building a design center of excellence starts with your
corporate brand design system, which sits at the top of the
hierarchy. Your logo, color palettes, typography, production
files, and other brand components can be found here. This
central design system acts as the base of your wider design
infrastructure: it informs and influences all underlying
subdesign systems.
These subdesign systems cater to either a specific

touchpoint such as your website, product like a marketplace,
or target audience, for example, your employees or
customers. Each subdesign system has its own design files
and components libraries and should be added to your
design center of excellence.
The beauty of your design center of excellence is that

when you launch new products or touchpoints (and create
new design systems along with that), components can be
drawn from other subdesign systems as well as the central
design system. This makes it faster and easier to control
and scale your designs.
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A simplified design
infrastructure.
Let’s say you’re working on the design for a new customer
portal. Within your design infrastructure, you already have
a design system in place for your customer target group.
Design elements can be taken from this design system
library, as well as from the central design system. As a
result, designing the portal now takes half the time it used
to.
But that’s not all…
A year after you launched the customer portal, you’re

undergoing a visual brand refresh. Nothing major, but color
palettes and fonts have changed. This of course needs to
be updated in your whole digital ecosystem.
Instead of doing that product by product, you can now

simply change the color palettes and fonts in your
central design system. Since the central design system is
connected to the underlying subdesign systems, changes
you make to it will be automatically applied to all connected
subdesign systems too.
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You can best compare your design center of excellence to
a Matryoshka doll, where smaller dolls are stacked inside
another. Only now, the central design system represents
the Matryoshka and the subdesign systems the little dolls
inside.
Pretty nifty, right?

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Guardians of the design galaxy
Creating a design center of excellence goes further than

connecting design systems, setting up instructions, and
calling it a day. After getting it off the ground, the biggest
hurdle to overcome is ensuring that the infrastructure
thrives and matures.
You need a core team to support and evolve your design

center. And not just any team. These design guardians,
as I like to call them, are responsible for growing and
maintaining your overall design infrastructure. The same
infrastructure that’s being used by the whole organization.
The guardians are basically the fuel that keeps your design
engine running. Whether you insource or outsource, it’s
key to hire high-performing and competent people who
have the right mix of skills.
Similar to how brands need brand advocates, your design

guardians need to advocate for and guard your design
center. Una Kravets, Developer Advocate at Google,
compares neglecting to invest in design systems to
working out.
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This can be applied to your design center of excellence
too:
“You can work out intensely for three months and see some
gains, but once you stop working out, those will slowly
fade away. If you continue to work out, even less often
than the initial investment, you’ll see yourself maintaining
your fitness level at a much higher rate than if you stopped
completely.
If you invest once in a design system but neglect to keep it

up, you’ll face the same situation. You’ll see an immediate
impact, but that impact will fade as it gets out of sync with
new designs and you’ll end up with strange, floating bits of
code that nobody is using.”
Your design center of excellence can make or break your

design competencies. It needs a roadmap and the right
team in place to survive and truly thrive. Nothing to be
taken too lightly.
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“Aligning cross-functional
teams is crucial to maintaining
consistency and building trust.
The way DPDK outlines the
Design Center of Excellence
ensures that each team is
represented and plays their part
in defining the infrastructure’s
foundation. This alignment
saves time and allows teams to
focus on what matters most -
creating the best possible CX.”
Zach Perkins
Strategic Development Manager at Adobe
The proof is in the pudding
I can imagine that by now you’re probably thinking, “This

all sounds great in theory, but what about actual execution
and implementation?”
In the words of the famous Barry White, at DPDK “We

practice what we preach.” I’ll share some of our most
exciting success stories from brands that are either working
on a design infrastructure or have already implemented it.
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Building a design center of excellence
for a global beverage brand
The real name of this client needs to unfortunately be kept

a secret, but if I say global beverage brand, I’m pretty sure
that you can make an estimated guess. We’ve been partners
for years and have done countless projects together, from
microsites to full-fledged digital platforms. Because of our
history, we were able to spot the opportunity to build their
own design center of excellence.
This beverage brand has hundreds of products and works

with geographically dispersed teams, which makes it
challenging to keep designs consistent across their digital
ecosystem. Not to mention the amount of work and budget
that goes to waste on duplicating work.
They already have their fair share of design systems in

place, and when we suggested an encompassing design

infrastructure, they were all ears.
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Getting started
Creating a design center of excellence for such a large

brand starts with an extensive research phase. We spoke to
several stakeholders to get a clear overview of their digital
ecosystem. That included a detailed look at the product
design systems, total product portfolio, target audiences,
and of course, the corporate brand design system.
One of the biggest challenges was to find a “simple” way

to organize the design infrastructure. As we have probably
all experienced, you have to work hard to make something
simple. This beverage brand has four main target groups,
from employees and vendors to business-to-business
clients and end consumers. We realized that organizing
the design infrastructure by target audience was the most
straightforward.
When you translate this into a visual, you’ll have the

corporate brand design system at the top with the four
target groups under it. These target groups then have
their own product range with associated design systems
nestled underneath.
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Here comes the roadmap
Next up was the roadmapping. You ultimately want to

end up with a visual document that illustrates the design
infrastructure strategy. We divided this into three major
phases:
Minimum viable product development

The first step to actually building the beverage
brand’s scalable design infrastructure is to
develop the minimum viable product (MVP). This
is the first version of the infrastructure and solely
focuses on design.
During this phase, we will appoint a small

centralized team of about ten people (strategist,
creative director, product manager, UX and UI
designer, program lead, project manager, etc.) to

safeguard and organize the design infrastructure.
The team decides which components should be
included in the MVP and publishes them. In this
phase, we aim to introduce one to three products
onto the infrastructure.
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Adding new and legacy products
Once we’ve built the MVP and have successfully
introduced products to it, the next phase involves
expanding the design language with new
components. This is also the time to incorporate
new products and begin experimenting with
frontend code.
At this juncture, the centralized team gets a bit

bigger and roles like motion designer, frontend
developer, and design technologist are added.
They start with product prioritization: legacy
products can be redesigned as quickly as
designing new products, but redevelopment will
also be required.
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Global roll-out
In the last phase, we gradually add all products
to the infrastructure, cluster by cluster. Design
components and code are ready for release
and there are processes in place to ensure
continuous component development.
At this point, the centralized team is supported

by another team which we call the federate
team. This team is composed of product owner
representatives who collect feedback from the
beverage brand’s stakeholders to ensure that
the design is headed in the right direction and
that the library will continue to grow. Together
they form a hybrid team.
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What’s next
Onboarding hundreds of products to a design infrastructure

will definitely take some time, which is why we planned
a total of approximately three years for the whole roll-
out from today onwards. But this doesn’t mean that the
beverage brand only starts reaping the benefits then.
Any new product that will be developed can be easily

designed with the existing and growing components within
the infrastructure. Design and development time and cost
will be immediately reduced and from our experience can
even be cut in half. The more products that are introduced,
the more beneficial it will be, as more and more components
will become available for use.
We definitely can’t wait to start building, so for now all

that’s left to say is: stay tuned!
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Designing for scale together with
Adobe
Known for its creative software products and with more

than 26,000 employees worldwide, Adobe needs no
introduction. Besides being big fans of their products, at
DPDK we’ve always had a fruitful relationship with Adobe.
I’ve spoken at Adobe MAX, the conference about creativity

with hundreds of inspiring speakers, and hosted various
in-depth sessions with Adobe experts on a wide range of
topics, from graphic design to designing for scale. It’s safe
to say that we’re close all the way.
We really started to hit it off at the beginning of 2020.

Adobe asked us to help out with the build of several
design systems and wanted a sparring partner to discuss
ideas for the future of scalable design.
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A more creative future
When Zach Perkins and Kristan Bell, both Strategic

Development Managers at Adobe, reached out for a
rebuild of multiple design systems from Figma (interface
design software) to Adobe XD, saying yes was a no-brainer.
With a not-so-perfect export functionality available, we had
to manually convert the component libraries, guidelines,
and production files.
While at it, we immediately implemented the latest Adobe

XD best practices and made sure to connect and arrange
the design systems in the most scalable way. Adobe’s
clients now have perfectly organized design systems,
greater scope of control over their designs, and improved
scalability.
Other than helping Adobe with design systems, our team

tests Adobe XD beta releases from time to time too. We
then give feedback about the good and the bad, as well
as potential new features. These sessions are valuable for
both sides, as we assist each other in creating scalable
design products.
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Adobe is all about building a more creative future and
providing teams the design tools that are needed to
craft exactly that. DPDK puts that mission into action;
we’re delighted to work so closely with them. Their
willingness to share their insights around design with
the community at large is an amazing example of the
kind of partner they are.
Kristan Bell
Strategic Development Manager at Adobe
|
48
Walking the talk
In the Netherlands, there’s this saying: “The plumber’s

house always leaks.” Basically, it’s difficult to get your
house in order because the work for others always takes
precedence over your own to-do list.
At DPDK, we’ve been advising brands on designing for

scale, the need for design systems, and brand consistency
for tens of years. We knew it was important but haven’t
been able to get around to it ourselves until a little over
two years ago.
When our marketing department was formed and we

published our blog, launched more campaigns, and
increased our content production, it was time to do
something about it.
Even though you can’t compare our design ecosystem to

that of the previously mentioned beverage brand, there’s
still a lot to gain from setting up our own design center of
excellence.
49 |
DPDK’s design infrastructure is obviously a whole lot
smaller and organized differently, but we’re a rapidly
growing digital agency. And when you’re growing that fast,
it’s easy to lose the grip on your brand.
|
50
Team scaling done right
In our design infrastructure, the brand design system also

sits at the top of the hierarchy, informing and influencing
all five underlying subdesign systems. The brand design
system contains our brand values, production files,
presentation templates, and visual brand identity. It’s
available for designers as an XD file and accessible to
other departments under a shared brand portal.
The subdesign systems are associated with specific

touchpoints like our website, illustrations, videos, and print
publications. In these, you can find the component library,
production files, and how-to guidelines. For example, our
website’s design system has different production files
for site sections on dpdk.com, from case study and blog
pages to landing pages.
When our digital ecosystem grows and we add additional

touchpoints, we can create new design systems that cater
to these touchpoints or add them as a subsystem to an
already existing design system in the infrastructure. What’s
key is having a single source of truth in place from where
it’s easier to scale.
51 |
This helps our teams tremendously with speeding
up workflows, scaling design efforts, and improving
collaboration between departments. They don’t need to
create elements from scratch and can experiment with
new ideas while safeguarding the look and feel of the
DPDK brand. Teams have the freedom to design “inside
the box” and more time to be truly creative.
Even though our design center of excellence is relatively

small, we’re already reaping the benefits and these will
only get bigger over time. We’re always planting seeds for
what lies ahead, and we’re definitely future-ready.
|
52
53 |
RETHINKING DESIGN
While it may not seem obvious, building a more creative

organization starts with rethinking how you see design.
Great design is not created in isolation - it requires smooth
collaboration between design, marketing, and tech teams.
But in most cases, it’s a struggle to set that collaboration
up.
Misalignments are bound to happen when different

departments work on various products with multiple
systems and documentation. Before you know it, you’re
dealing with duplicated work, complex workflows and
processes, and design inconsistencies. Which are hurting
your organization and slowing you down.
You need a single source of truth in place that unites

departments and helps teams achieve their potential. To
make that happen, design needs to get the attention and
5 - Rethinking design
monetary investment it deserves.
In short, design must get a seat at the C-suite table.
|
54
Unleash the value of design.
Teamwork all the way
In today’s digital age, marketing and technology have never

been more intertwined. This becomes a very different story
though when it comes down to the teams behind these
disciplines. As mentioned in chapter 2, marketing and tech
teams frequently find themselves on opposite ends of the
spectrum, but need each other to be successful.
The tensions between the teams have a number of reasons,

including conflicting priorities, resource allocation, and
unclear communication. That’s exactly why the CMO and
CTO should create a culture of collaboration and unify
their teams.
In the next sections, I’ll share how setting up a design center

of excellence can help with that and what the benefits are
for the CMO. Then I pass the word to Bill Marks, our CTO,
who will dive into the advantages for the CTO.
|
56
Scaling design when you’re a CMO
As a CMO today, you’re under a great deal of pressure.

Tasked with creating a frictionless, engaging CX, you’re
launching more campaigns, creating tons of content,
optimizing budgets, and meeting increasing revenue
targets along with changing customer demands. Your
digital ecosystem is complex, expectations are high, and
you need to move fast to keep up.
A design center of excellence can make your life much

easier and take some pressure off. Here’s how:
There’s a single source of truth in place

Bringing all design assets together in one
centralized location makes it easier to store,
organize, and distribute files. This reduces the
time spent on sharing and finding design files.
Teams will know where to go and will be able to
find what they need immediately. Questions like,

“Where can I find the latest version of the brand
logo?” or “Where are those production files?” will
become a thing of the past.
57 |
Improved CX consistency
Staying on-brand becomes simpler because of
better quality control. New design requests go
through your core team that is there to further
develop and guard the design infrastructure.
They assist other teams with what they need and
also manage access and sharing rights. All in all a
great recipe for a more consistent CX.
Shorter time-to-market
You’ll be able to “plug and play” products onto the
design infrastructure and cut design time in half
by making use of the elements and components
in connected design systems. This speeds up the
design and development cycle and enables you
to move fast.
|
58
Brand and product redesigns take a lot less time
Instead of having to update redesigns or style
tweaks product by product, you now only have
to overhaul the existing design system library.
When that’s done, the front end for all connected
products will be automatically updated too.
Increased cost efficiency

Setting up a design center of excellence reduces
your costs significantly. Enabling reusability,
preventing duplicate work, decreasing design
and development cycles, and better team
collaboration ultimately lead to a more efficient
process and less costs.
Team creativity boost

By having to spend less time on repetitive and
mundane tasks, your team can flex their creative

muscles again. No more reinventing the wheel
with each design request and creating elements
from scratch. They can focus on value-added
activities and what they do best.
59 |
Better cross-department collaboration
A design center of excellence unites teams
around a shared design language. When
everyone speaks the same language it’s
easier to share knowledge, spread ideas, and
develop relationships. This greatly improves
communication and enables you to build bridges
between design and development teams.
|
60
Scaling design when you’re a CTO
As the CTO of a fast-growing digital agency, I know that

life at the top isn’t a bed of roses. These last few years
in particular have not exactly been a walk in the park if
you’d ask me: rapid digitalization due to Covid-19, the fight
for tech talent, managing an increasingly complex digital
ecosystem, dealing with legacy systems and data ethics,
greater pressure on technology budgets, and keeping up
with the demand for continuous innovation.
But then again, you probably wouldn’t have become

a CTO if you were not up for a good challenge. There’s
definitely some light at the end of the tunnel. You might
think that a design center of excellence is more for design
teams and the marketing department, but I’m here to tell
you otherwise.
A design center of excellence can completely change the

management of your digital ecosystem. How you build

your tech stack, share knowledge, and maximize output
will never be the same again.
61 |
This is how:
Shorter product development cycles

You’ll be able to significantly decrease product
development time because your tech teams
can reuse code and existing components
from connected design systems in the design
infrastructure. You can bring new products and
features to the market quicker.
Redevelopment and maintenance take less time

The centralized nature of the design infrastructure
makes product maintenance and redevelopment
much easier. Instead of having to implement
fixes and improvements in every single product,
you can now simply update the specific design
system libraries. The changes here will instantly
propagate to all connected products.
|
62
Better code quality and consistency
By documenting your design center of excellence,
you immediately set standards for the quality of
your code and make maintaining consistency
easier too. The infrastructure contains production
files, guidelines, and resources to tackle problems
the right way. This goes further than explaining
what there is to work with, as developers learn
about code style and test approach as well. Your
team will end up with a common understanding
of how to write code.
Increased cost efficiency

Because of the design center of excellence, fewer
people can build, maintain, and fix more products
in the same amount of time. Shorter development
cycles, preventing duplicate work, reusing code,
better knowledge sharing, and improved team

collaboration all lead to an increase in process
efficiency and, with that, lower costs. Not bad
when the market for tech talent is stretched.
63 |
Greater collaboration across departments
Designers and developers typically don’t
speak the same language, but a design center
of excellence changes that. A design center
of excellence unites teams by introducing a
shared design language across departments.
This improves communication and collaboration,
makes it easier to share knowledge and ideas,
and helps bridge the gap between design and
development teams.
Team creativity boost

Because your team no longer has to write code
from scratch and reinvent the wheel with each
development request, they have more time to
focus on honing their craft. You give your team
more freedom to experiment and be creative
again.
|
64
FOR NOW AND THE FUTURE
Hopefully by now I’ve provided some compelling reasons

to convince you that design can be scaled and doing so
successfully can create an unfair competitive advantage.
Setting up a design infrastructure is a sensible move for

brands that want to scale their design efforts, improve
cross-department collaboration, boost team creativity,
increase efficiency, and provide a consistent CX. Most
importantly, you no longer have to choose between scale
or quality, because now you can have both and maintain
quality while scaling.
I’d even go this far and say that investing in a design

infrastructure is the best decision you’ll make this year.
Will it be a challenge to get your ducks in a row and
prepare yourself for this step? Absolutely. Because make
6 - For now and the future
no mistake, this is a company-wide project. Breaking down

silos, implementing change, and building a culture of
collaboration is no easy feat.
That’s why the whole C-suite needs to be aligned. The roles

of the CMO and CTO have evolved and when they work
65 |
effectively together, magic can happen. Both are destined
to rule the digital world in unison. Always remember, the
road to success and innovation isn’t built by one individual
genius, but rather a whole bunch.
Your design capabilities are a big driving force behind the

success you’ll have as a brand. Think about it, have you
ever heard of a thriving brand that isn’t excelling at design?
I haven’t.
You reached the end of this guide, but your journey is far
from over. You’re now equipped with unique insights and
experiences for an entire creative transformation. The
future waits for no one. It’s time to get to work!
6 - For now and the future
|
66
THE CLOCK IS TICKING:
START DESIGNING FOR
SCALE TODAY
This guide probably hasn’t given you all the answers you
were looking for. I’d much rather hop on a call and talk it
through over coffee. What do you say?
michael.vromans@dpdk.com
dpdk.com
@dpdk
@dpdk
@dpdk_digital
Recognized for digital excellence
67 |
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
If 15 years in the digital industry have taught Michael Vromans

anything, it’s that whatever dominates the conversation today can
become irrelevant tomorrow. That’s why he is on a constant quest for
creative ideas that not only innovate but also transform brands. As our
Chief Creative Officer, he gets to do just that and works with clients
such as Keysight Technologies, Nike, and Oxfam Novib.
|
68
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bill Marks is a subject matter expert in IT, data, and everything digital.
He has over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. As
Chief Technology Officer, he is responsible for tech development and
making sure we deliver the best digital experiences. Next to his deep
love for exceptionally well-designed digital products and services, Bill
also likes music and fast-paced sports. His dream is to one day make
his own beats and produce a full-blown track.
69 |
ABOUT DPDK
20+ years of transformation, change, innovation, and adaptation.

We saw tech emerge and disappear, trends come and go and
customer expectations change and grow.
Today more than ever, our clients count on us to be new every day.
As an innovation partner, they rely on our experience and expertise
dealing with continuous transformation and resilient adaptation.
We help them answer and exceed customer expectations in a
hyper-personalized landscape, keep them on the offense, and
have their brand differentiate through customer experience.
From 20+ years till now, and from offices in Rotterdam, New York,
and San Francisco, we can proudly say we are still living our mission:
Transforming brands through exceptional digitalism.
|
70

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Wondering why I’m writing about scaling design now?

Firstly, digital sameness has taken hold and it keeps getting

I reckon three reasons will do.

Design enables brands to change, evolve, grow - basically

These days, where customers take the function of a product or

And this doesn’t apply to offline channels only. When a font on

Having strong design capabilities as a brand could not be more

crucial. After all, the function of design is to promote your brand

What’s interesting is that design has become way too important

The great thing about technology is that it’s easy to scale

That’s why in this guide, I’ll share what makes a customer

who values ideas and creativity should read.

3 Leading with creative transformation

4 Design Center of Excellence

6 For now and the future

Design systems are nothing new and seem to be everywhere

departments and regions with competing objectives work on

Not to mention the time and resources that are wasted in

What these inconsistencies reflect are fragmentations in your

To set such a design infrastructure up, the entire C-suite needs

ability to scale, and a consistent CX is only the beginning. What

CX is one of the most popular terms in digital, with Google

CX as we know it stands for customer experience, which is

In a world of chaos, CX is your anchor. At least that’s what it’s

CX has become stagnant during the past few years. Many

brands are struggling to improve and differentiate. And while

How customers interact and journey through your brand’s

One of the best explanations I’ve come across is from market

Inconsistent experiences cause cracks in the mosaic and

Just look what happened to the once widely popular Skype

brand. When Microsoft acquired Skype in 2011, the brand went

To build trust and a positive reputation, your CX has to be

Most CMOs and CTOs I’ve met understand the significance

Digital ecosystems have become more complex than

Then of course, no team is an island. Those same teams

inconsistencies spring up like mushrooms. The C-suite

The end result is a consistency versus scalability story

Creativity has always been crucial to a brand’s success,

“Creativity touches all our lives in a thousand different

I’m wondering though, how creative that future really is.

When I’m ordering dinner on one of my food delivery apps,

flights online or a hotel room. Digital sameness is plaguing

In a quest to master CX and digital transformation, the

Technology is prioritized over creativity and the effects are

Our digital activities are growing, from new product

This also means that designers, developers, and

markets, updating a website with new branding requests,

Count busy work schedules and a constant stream of

Many C-level executives run digital transformations or CX

Creativity holds the ticket to a better tomorrow and is key to

Unfortunately, creativity is not a topping that you decide

To encourage and promote creative thinking, the C-suite

A successful CX is not created with one component

Your customers are looking for a unique and engaging

that don’t load within 3 seconds, apps that are difficult to

We’re living in the age of and, where combining function

But the success you’ll have as a brand lies in navigating

One of the first questions that pop up whenever I’m having

Don’t get me wrong, creativity is hard to grasp, let alone

But there are certain conditions you can create to foster

more than 1,200 people and is probably one of the most