Emerald Design System

ABN AMRO’s design system is called Emerald. I was assigned to further develop Emerald and led a team of two designers and five developers. Like ABN AMRO itself, Emerald is constantly evolving.

The foundation of Emerald is built on principles established by the community. From this foundation, components are developed, which in turn enable patterns. This dynamic plays an important role in the ongoing development of Emerald — alongside the complexity of the banking landscape, of course.

During my time leading the Design System team, we evolved our Way of Working (WoW) — moving from a contribution model to a collaboration model, with the Design System team maintaining overall oversight.

The Emerald Design System is still in use today and was already established before I joined the project. We focused on improving and refining its foundation, with an emphasis on quality-of-life enhancements.

We also made the documentation format more accessible, allowing designers and developers to more easily review how and why a component was developed.

Exploring and identifying various patterns within the ecosystem formed a separate track. Through a series of sessions, we examined the opportunities and pitfalls. This resulted in a vast amount of information, which was then consolidated into the most valuable patterns to be documented.

When a component or pattern presented a challenge too complex for a single designer to solve, a workshop was organised. After all, any change within a Design System quickly impacts multiple stakeholders across the organisation.

The experience gained from Emerald provided an important foundation for the development of Fensie, the design system for the Ministry of Defence.