White Castle
Modular Email Design System
PROJECT OVERVIEW 2021
White Castle
Create a modular email design system to increase annual customer value by converting email subscribers to loyalty program members and increasing customer order frequency. By creating a custom design system, this offers more personalization and versatility in email content creation.
Product Designer, Developer, PM
8 Weeks
Let’s start at the beginning
As the sole designer on this account, I had full control of the creative direction, from pitching photo concepts to the component creation in its entirety. I first began the design process by looking at inspiration, what are other companies doing to improve their email marketing?
I analyzed how companies such as Starbucks, Free People, Taco Bell etc.. were focusing their efforts in this space. From there, I was able to focus on the creative direction I wanted to take White Castle.
The White Castle account created an opportunity to improve the long standing and tedious process of designing emails and instead create a frictionless, flexible and scalable design practice. Migrating their email communications to a modular design system allows for seamless personalization and customization of content.
Benefits of a Modular System
Accessibility
The use of images as content within an email is not accessible for everyone, therefore a modular system allows for more inclusivity for consumers. This is also one of the easiest ways to maximize your marketing reach.
Scalability
A modular design kit allows for flexible, efficient scalability across various platforms. Being able to do so increases the effectiveness, sustainability, and reach of your emails.
Automation
Allows for a personalized experience, especially when emails can be triggered based on behavior, action or in-action. By using modules, it allows customers to have a unique and personalized experience since they can easily be swapped in and out.
400%
Increase in email variety
67%
increase in unique clicks YOY
40%
increase in unique open rate
Color Palette
Get to know the brand
White Castle has been around since 1921 and has tons of rich history as a brand and remains a family owned and operated business to this day. The brand has a fun personality with many loyal customers that have built life long memories while visiting a White Castle. This being an important aspect of their brand was a driving force in my creative direction.
It took about 6 weeks to complete after developing concepts, deciding on a photography direction and presenting multiple rounds of design to the client. The design system was created with a mobile-first approach before moving to desktop module creation and consists of over 200 email modules built using Figma.
Final Takeaways
- Chunking out the work & thinking about it as pieces of a larger puzzle instead of a completed puzzle can allows the work to feel more digestable. This allowed me to focus on small milestones until getting to the finish line.
- Figma components make your life easier. Period.
- Don't be afraid to experiment with visual styles, you can always scale back afterwards, if needed.
- I was allocated to two projects during this time so having a schedule to keep myself organized day to day made the world of a difference.
Selected Works
