Date: October 2024 - Present
Role: Art Director
Company: Banco Carrefour
Role: Art Director
Company: Banco Carrefour
Overview
Banco Carrefour is the largest Fintail in Brazil with over 600 employees and the financial arm of Grupo Carrefour Brasil serving 7 Milion clients through three main Business Units: Cartão Atacadão, Cartão Sams Club, and Cartão Carrefour. With a large volume of emails sent monthly, direct customer communication via CRM is essential for relationship building and conversion strategies.
The bank's marketing team consists of 8 Art Directors responsible for creating visual materials for the three BUs. The challenge arose when leadership identified critical inconsistencies in CRM visual communication between business units. For an established brand in the financial sector with consolidated branding, where trust and professionalism are fundamental, this lack of standardization in direct customer communications was unacceptable and compromised brand perception.
High-Level Goals
• The objective was to create a robust and scalable Design System that could:
• Establish absolute visual consistency in communications following Banco Carrefour's branding guidelines
• Drastically reduce production time for emails and relationship materials
• Create a system optimized for development and technical implementation on the platform
• Enable all 8 team ADs to maintain quality and efficiency
• Develop a system that would serve as a foundation for future communication expansions
The Problem
Critical Initial Situation
The scenario found in the marketing team's communications was one of complete inconsistency:
• Email templates with variations that disrespected branding between BUs
• Disorganized color palettes, deviating from institutional standards
• Non-standardized typography in transactional and promotional communications
• Inadequate Auto Layout, generating massive inefficiency in the creation flow
• Misaligned components that harmed professional perception in direct communications
Severe Operational Impacts
The lack of standardization created a harmful domino effect:
• Excessive time: 2 emails required 1.5 days of work
• Constant rework: Each AD needed to manually adjust each template
• Technical inconsistency: In Salesforce, each email required specific construction, negatively impacting implementation
• Relationship compromise: Visual inconsistencies compromised trust and campaign effectiveness
Methodological Approach
I adopted an iterative and collaborative strategy, working closely with the development team to ensure each created component was technically viable and optimized for implementation. The process also included punctual consultation with the UX team, who shared fundamental knowledge about Design Systems best practices.
Immersion and Learning Phase: I dove deep into studying components for transactional and promotional emails, Auto Layout, and mainly technical limitations for development. The partnership with developers was fundamental to understanding the specificities of implementation on relationship platforms.
Branding Alignment: The entire system was structured rigorously respecting Banco Carrefour's established branding guidelines, ensuring visual consistency in communications maintained the brand's consolidated identity.
Technical Challenges
My biggest initial difficulty was mastering Figma to create specific components for email marketing platforms. I needed to study technical limitations intensively, always in dialogue with developers to ensure adequate optimization.
Results
The CRM Design System implementation brought significant improvements for the business and its teams:
Operational Impact
• Faster Processes: enabling the team to produce 6 emails in 2 days instead of 2 emails in 1.5 days.
• Team Productivity: All 8 Art Directors can now create templates maintaining consistent quality standards across all business units.
• Process Standardization: Established a unified workflow that supports scalability and efficient onboarding.
Technical Impact
• Development Agility: The development team established standardized patterns within Salesforce, significantly accelerating technical implementation.
• Error Reduction: The unified component and template structure eliminated code divergences between emails, drastically reducing implementation errors and minimizing rework.
• Optimized Handoff: Close collaboration resulted in components specifically designed for seamless developer integration.
• System Consistency: Unified components enable much more agile development implementations.
Organizational Impact
• Institutional Recognition: The Design System became the official standard for Banco Carrefour's marketing team.
• Expanded Application: The system now serves as foundation for various marketing materials beyond email campaigns.
• Stakeholder Approval: Unanimous praise from leadership validated the strategic approach and delivered measurable business value.
Key Learnings
Significant Personal Discoveries
This project revealed capabilities I didn't know I possessed to such intensity: exceptional facility for rapid learning, natural leadership skills, and organizational maturity that proved fundamental to the project's success. My natural tendency toward structured processes and meticulous organization was the differentiator that transformed a specific project into an institutional standard.
Strategic Lessons
The biggest learning was understanding that an effective Design System needs to balance three fundamental pillars: branding fidelity, technical viability, and operational efficiency. Close collaboration with the development team was fundamental to ensuring each visual decision had solid technical backing, while UX consultations provided the necessary conceptual foundation.
Reflection for Future Projects
If I could redo the project, I would ideally create the entire system before its implementation. Developing the Design System simultaneously with its application in the daily work of 8 ADs, although it worked, made the process more complex and challenging than necessary. Parallel implementation, however, allowed real validation and adjustments based on the team's practical use.