Brittany Ferries
One-year mission as Lead Design System, building and rolling out a shared UI system across app and web, while redesigning core booking and sailing journeys inside a multi-product organisation with many POs and PMs.
What we had to solve
Many products, many stakeholders
Ferry, holidays, promo, account and ops surfaces each had their own backlog owners. Aligning decisions meant facilitating across squads without freezing delivery, one system, many voices.
A complex legacy architecture
The digital stack had grown for years: mixed patterns, duplicated components and hard-coded UI that couldn’t be swapped overnight. A big-bang redesign wasn’t an option.
Migrate component by component
The new design system had to land incrementally, tokens first, then buttons, forms, status badges, booking widgets, with clear documentation so engineering could adopt without breaking live journeys.
How we got there
- 01
Audit & governance
Mapped existing UI debt across web and app, ran an accessibility audit, and set a lightweight DS governance model with product and eng leads so priorities stayed shared.
- 02
System foundations
Defined Poppins typography, green/navy/orange palette, icon set and core primitives, buttons, inputs, badges, cards, with states, verbal rules and Do/Don’t guidelines.
- 03
Incremental migration
Rolled out component by component into the live architecture: search widget, sailing cards, status chips, then denser app flows (home, my sailings, trip detail) without a full rewrite.
- 04
UX & conversion loops
Partnered with POs/PMs on booking and pre-check journeys, iterating on clarity and CTA hierarchy while measuring accessibility fixes and conversion impact.
What changed
A living design system adopted across product teams, clearer sailing experiences on app and web, stronger accessibility foundations, and booking flows that convert with less friction.