There are two ways to rollout a design system. Either incrementally, or with a large-scale redesign. Unless there's a need to redesign your campaigns, you should go with an incremental rollout. Focus on not only building tools, but creating a shared language.

Your design system can be big or small depending on the size of your organization. Only build and document aspects that you need. Start small and build up.

Audit your current assets

Release small pieces of the design system at a time by first documenting design patterns from your current campaigns. This allows you to test your components in a real context. You can then start with common problems, like defining consistent headline options.

• Organize a team that could help with gathering assets - this also helps develop a shared understanding of how to measure quality components
• Start categorizing components - this will happen as you begin to find patterns of component types and helps define a language around your system
• Take screenshots - besides individual assets, screenshots are a way to show examples of components used in their proper context
• Keep branding in mind - how do components express your brand? How do they compare to brand guidelines? Are design elements consistent (fonts, colors, etc)?
• Choose the right tool to keep assets in - it should allow for visuals, adding metadata and notes, and commenting

Collaborate with your team

Your design system is only as strong as your relationships with the teams who use it. You need to develop trust and allow for it to evolve by encouraging participation in its development.

• Talk to people who will be using the system to find out what they need
• Educate on value of using a design system based on problems it solves
• Define a purpose to follow: how will the design system help, and who is it for
• Align brand values and define principles of those values to refer to
• If something is unclear, talk through and get feedback on how to further improve
• Provide a point of contact, support ticketing system, discussion forum, etc
• Include link to docs in other processes like company-wide demos and emails, etc

Start building and using an initial version of your system early as you continue to find patterns.

For more on using a design system for your campaigns, check out our free guides for both landing pages, and marketing emails.

With Blocks Edit, you can start using your design system at any point in the process, and regularly add to it while you continue getting campaigns out.