When TOMS announced a major brand refresh, the countdown to launch had already begun. Marketing had set the tone with a bold new identity, but the website and digital ecosystem weren’t ready to match it. That’s where I came in.

As the lead product designer, I saw an opportunity to do more than just update visuals. I set out to build a flexible, scalable, and accessible design system that could carry the new brand across every customer touchpoint, from our internal pages to third-party platforms and beyond.

The marketing team was ready to go live, but the e-commerce site, internal tools, and vendor templates still reflected the old look and feel. With launch day fast approaching, the pressure was on to bring everything into alignment quickly.

Early design comps leaned trendy (punchy colors, hyper-modern fonts) but our core customer wasn’t Gen Z. She was a thoughtful, values-driven Millennial looking for ease, not edge.

I conducted a quick but pointed competitor audit and refreshed our personas. That work helped pivot us toward a more timeless, editorial style that honored the brand’s roots and future.

To unify the experience across teams and vendors, I built a modular design system in Figma, prioritizing:

• Scalability across e-commerce, editorial, and email
• Clarity for developers and external global partners
• Accessibility built in from the start

I also wrote documentation that made the system approachable. No jargon, just clear guidance and reusable patterns and components.

I worked side-by-side with developers to ensure pixel-perfect implementation, QA’ing components as they went live. I also supported external vendors as they adopted the system, ensuring design intent held strong even beyond our core team.

Mobile was a major focus for this rebrand, as it encompassed 80%+ of our customer base. We rethought navigation, hierarchy, and interaction patterns from the ground up to ensure the experience felt just as polished on a phone as it did on desktop.

This system wasn’t just about consistency. It became a shared language for our global teams. Design reviews ran smoother. Vendor handoffs became faster. The whole team moved with more confidence.

What started as a rush to align visuals became something deeper: a tool that helped teams across the globe move faster, design smarter, and feel more connected. The design system didn’t just unify the brand, it unified the people behind it.

This system became more than a toolkit. It became a shared language for our global team. Designers, developers, marketers, and even third-party distributors praised how easy it was to work with, calling it “a game changer” for day-to-day execution. What once felt like chaos turned into cohesion.

It’s become a flexible foundation that supports launches, campaigns, and distributor needs without adding friction. With plans to expand it further through motion, accessibility, and localization, it’s built to grow well beyond the rebrand.