Creating a Unified Design System with Adidas
Adidas Digital Language
The Adidas Design System was the culmination of 4 years of partnership and close collaboration with Adidas to unify its sprawling and disparate digital ecosystem into a single visual language. A project like this touches every digital team in some way. The sheer amount of exploration, and its orchestrated rollout, required next-level collaboration.
Working closely & iteratively with co-creators across the org, we created, documented, and implemented a best-in-class design system that scales to power every touchpoint.
Our Work:
Strategy
- Desk research
- Platform strategy
Ecommerce
- Wireframing & prototyping
- Front-end development
Branding
- UX & UI Design
- Digital Design System
- Brand guidelines
A Unifying Design System
Built on three guiding principles, the design language features full-screen, product-led layouts and a flexible component library that can shift tone and style per sub-brand (Originals, Sports, Collaborations). By structuring content into clear narrative moments and leveraging familiar UX patterns, the experience feels immersive, intuitive, and unmistakably Adidas.
Our development team partnered with Adidas engineering department, coordinating on specs and integration, to implement a robust and scalable design system. This system promotes faster innovation and a consistent, premium brand experience for users worldwide.
Serving the entire digital ecosystem
The design system was implemented across all Adidas digital touchpoints ensuring a consistent user experience, from the mobile app and social media to in-store devices like smart fitting rooms, CRM and marketplaces.
Theming Playbook
With Adidas we assembled a Playbook alongside guidelines for Theming, a mindset enabling their design team to approach interface design differently: content-driven & story-driven.
The Playbook provided practical frameworks and examples, demonstrating how to implement these principles effectively across touchpoints, ultimately leading to more intuitive and memorable user experiences. It also empowers teams to think beyond visual consistency and towards experience coherence, enabling Adidas to move faster while staying unmistakably on brand.
