Overview

At the time of this project’s initiation, ADT had multiple design teams working across a variety of functions, mediums, and applications but there was no cohesive design culture.

I had been running a cross-departmental Design Review call for many years and noticed that due to a lack of a common creative infrastructure, the team sometimes had trouble communicating. We needed a shared language and a common set of standards to judge our work and create conformity under the master brand.

I spearheaded the initiative to bridge the gap between design teams and help craft a working set of design principles to guide our work as an organization. At the same time, I wanted the process to be collaborative, to allow all teams involved to feel invested in the result. This was the first set of design principles of its kind, at ADT.

Role

• Director of Product Design 

• Led the strategic vision of the project

• Oversaw  UX and UI team and owned communication with the executive team

Approach

• At ADT, creative design functions were split up between multiple teams including web & e-commerce UX, in-house brand creative, product UX, copywriting, and CX. 

• The entire cross-departmental creative organization was assembled to align the goals and objectives of the project.  

• As a group, we reviewed well-respected brands that inspired us and analyzed their design principles as a frame of reference.

• Each team held internal brainstorming sessions to ideate on key themes that were important to them.

• After meeting individually, all design teams regrouped for a workshop to cluster key themes, distill the list down to a core set of principles, ideate further, and elaborate on each principle.

• The copywriting team, at my direction, began refining the language around each theme.

• Design leaders across all functions helped us revise and iterate on our list until all parties were satisfied and then I presented the final draft to the Marketing Leadership Team (MLT) for alignment.

• Once the final set of design principles was complete, two designers reporting to me brought them to life through illustrations consistent with our brand guidelines.

• Lastly, my team crafted a set of usable Zoom backgrounds, desktop wallpapers, and screensavers to help all creatives keep our set of design principles top-of-mind and handy at all times.

Outcomes & Impact

ADT’s official Design Principles helped creative teams across the organization effectively critique and analyze work, as well as strive for cohesion, quality, and consistency across all deliverables. The principles were used to help designers ensure that their work met the standards of quality that were expected to represent the master brand. 

The gallery below shows the design principles, as laid out in the official company Brand Guidelines