Building a design system and a design team · Issuu

Background

Transforming static files into interactive e-books.

Issuu is a digital publishing platform. People upload a PDF, and Issuu turns it into a flipbook, articles and social posts they can share, embed and sell. Its creators range from independent magazines to brands, schools and nonprofits. It runs on a freemium model: free to start, with paid plans that unlock more documents and features. Its product teams worked across offices in Copenhagen, Berlin, Braga and Palo Alto.

Problem

An inconsistent product slowed every release.

Issuu had no design director, teams in four offices, and a UI full of mismatched patterns. New users misread features or doubted their value, and every release took longer than it should.

Desired outcome

A product that explains itself, built faster.

Outcome for the user An interface where features are findable, trustworthy and accessible.

Product output Silkscreen components, consistent and legible across the product.

Outcome for the business Ship new features faster and raise UX maturity across the company.

Solution

How the workflow changed.

Before

Each office designs its own patterns
Engineers rebuild components per team
Mismatched UI ships
Users misread features

After

Teams design with Silkscreen in Figma
Same tokens in code and docs
Features assembled from the system
Consistent UI ships faster

Where it broke downWhat changed

Silkscreen.

Silkscreen is what we named our design system: one people could actually apply consistently across the product when building new features, with its rules documented in Figma, in code and in several internal documents.

Accessible by default Components meet AA contrast. Places built without the system had more accessibility violations.

One source of truth Styles become design tokens, synced from Figma to code through Tokens Studio.

Documented and shared Coded components in Storybook, with guidelines in Zeroheight.

The before and after screens, from March 2021 to December 2023, show the change best as a slider.

Results

Outcome

With my co-lead, I rebuilt Issuu’s design department and the design system it works with, and usage of key features rose by up to 500%.

Best year Revenue

+35% Zero-day upsells

63%→75% New users who share after publishing, 2021 to 2023

Double-digit Rise in new paying customers

The year with Issuu’s highest revenue was also the year we shipped the most fundamental design changes to the core product, from the interface to the information architecture. Issuu was acquired by Bending Spoons in 2024.

The Issuu publishing workspace in 2024 — After the rollout: the workspace in 2024.

New users who share after publishing+12.4 pts, 2021 to 2023

62.7%

+2.9 pts 65.6%

+9.5 pts 75.1%

2021 2022 2023

Axis starts at 55% to show the change. Issuu was paying for a lot of traffic with a high marketing budget. As that budget was phased down and overall traffic fell, the share of new users who shared after publishing kept rising.

Accessibility improved wherever the system was used, and public feedback on the UI became more positive.

Process

The research, decisions and steps behind the result.

Building and maintaining a design system and a design team