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House of Brands to a Branded House: Boston Scientific's Email Design System

COMPANY:

Boston Scientific

MY ROLES:

  • Visual Design Lead

  • Brand Standards

  • Omnichannel Experience 

  • Design System

TEAM CREDITS:

  • Katie Gadempsky, Marketing CLoud Product Owner

  • Irina Muradian, Brand Manager

  • The Entire BSC Production Team

Maintaining a cohesive brand identity across Boston Scientific's 12 medical specialty divisions presented a complex challenge. Each division encompassed unique subsections with distinct customer bases, product lines, and nuanced perspectives within the healthcare landscape. During the company's brand refresh, I took on the task of designing an email design system that would integrate and align the updated aesthetic with brand vision. 

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Investigative research revealed all 12 divisions were creating email communications and customer journeys without centralized brand or operational guidelines. Designers and content creaters were forced to improvise, while production teams were overwhelmed by conflicting responsibilities and persistent technical issues within Marketing Cloud.

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By developing a flexible design system that included branding guidelines, reusable content blocks, and standardized journey templates, the project established a foundational blueprint for digital expansion in marketing automation. The redesign dramatically streamlined Marketing Cloud production, reducing implementation time by 30%.

One Brand, One Roof

The most pressing brand challenge was inconsistent email architecture. Divisions routinely modified headers and footers for individual projects, placing product wordmarks prominently in headers while applying inconsistent color treatments, which diluted Boston Scientific's master brand presence.

I redesigned the email template structure to establish a clear visual hierarchy that positioned Boston Scientific as the primary brand. Moving co-branded elements and product wordmarks from the header to the email body, while creating a standardized lockup system for sub-brands like EDUCARE, brought visual cohesion to all communications while reinforcing Boston Scientific's position as the parent brand.

Two Libraries, One System

I built parallel design libraries in Figma and Marketing Cloud, containing typography, color, graphic elements, and modular content blocks. This 1:1 relationship between design and production tools allowed the production teams to build emails perfectly aligned to the design provided using pre-styled modules, removing the burden of design decisions from their workflow.

Component Libraries

Design Templates

Brand Style Guide

To support the libraries, I created an email style guide that mapped out brand element usage and protocols tailored for various users, from external agencies and internal design teams to content authors in Marketing Cloud. Recognizing the need for clarity without overwhelming detail, I developed a graphic system to guide each audience group, making it easy for users to scan and find the content relevant to them.

A critical component of the system addressed digital accessibility, introducing clear guidelines for text and color combinations that met WCAG standards. The new color and typography requirements resolved longstanding readability issues and guaranteed accessible content across all email communications.

All work

© 2024 by Gabrielle Portal / Portal Studios.

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