Research & Approach

To create a foundation that teams could actually use, I began by researching established design systems, such as Material Design, Fluent, and Carbon, to identify common best practices and documentation patterns. I then audited Essent’s existing digital interfaces to pinpoint inconsistencies in commonly used components.

Working closely with our product owner, I translated these findings into clear, actionable guidance and visuals. Each section of the guide balanced principles with practical rules. This included usage guidelines, interaction states, accessibility notes, and do/don’t examples to support consistent implementation. Topics included, but were not limited to:

• Typography

• Color Palette

• Visual and Informational Hierarchy

• Buttons

• Forms

• Responsive Design

Throughout the process, I prioritized clarity and scalability, ensuring the guide could evolve from a project-specific resource into a foundation for all teams working on digital interfaces.

Scaling the Color Palette

One area that showed major inconsistency was color usage. With only a small set of base colors, teams often improvised; developers and product owners chose new hues as needed, leading to visual drift across products. I streamlined the palette and built a color scale of tints and shades to provide flexibility while maintaining consistency. This ensured accessible contrast ratios, reduced guesswork, and kept components, backgrounds, and visuals within a cohesive system. The new structure also laid the groundwork for a color token system that supports scalable, intentional design.

Typography

Another area that lacked consistency was typography. Without defined type styles, teams selected fonts, sizes, and weights independently, resulting in uneven hierarchy and readability across interfaces. I established a typographic scale that standardized headings, body text, and supporting styles, ensuring visual clarity and consistent hierarchy across products.

Deliverable

The final deliverable was a comprehensive guide that unified Essent’s approach to digital design. It outlined key principles and consistency, alongside component guidelines covering behaviors, usage, and accessibility best practices.

While the guide was originally created for just the CX team, it quickly became a reference across teams. Building on its success, I began developing a scalable component library to turn static documentation into reusable, accessible components. This library will serve as a shared source of truth for designers and developers and lay the groundwork for Essent’s future digital designs.