For enterprises who own multiple brands, whether through decades of organic growth or rapid M&A activity, adopting a single design system across multiple websites can seem like an impossible task. But not only is it achievable, it is highly desirable for businesses who want to maximise the potential of their digital channels to attract and retain customers.

If you’ve read our previous piece on when’s the right time to replatform, you’ll recognise the issues at the infrastructure layer: technology stacks that were accumulated rather than designed, duplication of effort and mounting operational costs just to keep the lights on for each brand’s website. Not having a proper multi-brand design system creates the same problems, one level up in the experience layer.

UNRVLD Head of Experience Design Louis Sheppard leads the design stream for our clients’ most complex digital programmes, including multi-brand enterprises in the construction, retail and real estate sectors. We sat down with him to understand what a multi-brand design system is, why we’d recommend one to clients, and the impact on both group and brand-level digital operations from having one in place.

What are the main differences between a single-brand design system and one designed for multiple brands?

A design system is about creating consistency, speed, and quality within a product ecosystem. At the most basic level it is based on the principle that interaction patterns can be common across many different scenarios, and there is no need to continuously rethink or rebuild all elements. When well adopted they reduce duplication, maintain consistency and significantly reduce effort to build.

A multi-brand design system is based on the exact same principles, but with the added dimension that it also needs to support different branding needs and consider how reusability works across businesses whose product and service offer may differ considerably.

How does a unified design system shape customer experiences within a multi-brand organisation, beyond visual consistency?

Visual consistency is just one part of the system. The biggest impact is on how experiences behave. A unified system establishes shared patterns for things like navigation, form behaviour, error handling, onboarding flows, and interaction feedback. These patterns shape how customers move through digital products and complete tasks.

For a multi-brand organisation, the benefit here is that proven patterns can be shared across businesses. What works well in one context can be easily translated to another, enabling all businesses to benefit from shared learnings and successful approaches.

As an example, when developing this approach for a B2B manufacturing group we observed considerably different approaches to the find-a-stockist feature across the different brands’ websites, often with high abandonment for this key conversion point. By developing a best-practice approach that saw increased conversion for one business, we were able to roll it out across others with minimal development cost or time needed to re-think and re-test. Minor adaptions could be made where needed, with core functionality providing a proven approach.

How does a shared design system create consistent experiences for customers as they move across different brands, channels and touchpoints?

Consistency across brands and channels is about shared interaction logic rather than identical interfaces. A well-designed system defines the core building blocks of the experience: components, layouts, behaviours, and interaction patterns. These elements are designed to be flexible enough to adapt to different brands and channels while still behaving in a consistent way.

Within a group of businesses there is typically significant opportunity for cross-sell, and for exposing customers from one business to products and services that may be relevant for them in another. In these cases, it's important to think about each website as part of an ecosystem, rather than individual channels.

An example of this comes from our work with a leading multi-brand homebuilder. We were able to offer tailored promotions through web journeys and email where we identified a customer's needs may be better suited to products and services offered by another brand in the group. It's important within this type of approach not simply to cannibalise customer share from one to another, but to build an understanding of the customer need and convert a customer who is likely to or has already abandoned one journey – with a relevant offer elsewhere.

Through shared and consistent usability, the design system ensures that moving through this ecosystem is easy. While areas may look different, they feel familiar and act predictably.

What challenges signal that a multi-brand organisation needs a shared design system?

A well-structured and implemented design system solves many problems and brings exponential benefits the longer it's in place, but establishing one requires work and a rethink in terms of how businesses view their use of digital. So there needs to be a clear business case for doing this.

This may be visible on an experience level - poor conversion, high abandonment, low adoption. But typically, there will be more fundamental issues that make the business case clear.

The high costs of maintaining multiple websites on different technology stacks, coupled with the additional effort of duplicating work across teams, makes a single-system approach significantly more commercially viable in the longer term.

Scale is another factor. Businesses may find it hard to move the needle on meaningful metrics when dealing with a fragmented estate; change is slow when problems are tackled in isolation.

How do you define what elements should be shared across brands, and what must remain brand-specific?

Behaviour should be shared, identity should be flexible. Without oversimplifying, this may mean that interaction patterns, accessibility standards, component behaviour, and information architecture benefit from being standardised. Whereas identity elements such as colour, typography, tone of voice, and imagery should remain flexible.

Brand positioning and differentiation are essential for any business to have a presence and stand out in their market - this is a core requirement for a multi-brand design system. The goal is not to standardise everything. It's to strengthen the presence and performance of each business. It's about being intentional with what elements shape usability and operational efficiency, and what drive differentiation and loyalty.

How does a shared design system help fragmented teams align around a coherent customer experience, even when they operate independently?

A design system provides a shared framework that allows teams within different divisions or brands to move independently while still contributing to a coherent overall experience.

Instead of prescribing exactly what teams must design, the system provides a common language and toolkit. Components, patterns, accessibility standards, and interaction principles become shared references. This reduces the need for constant coordination between teams while still ensuring the overall ecosystem evolves in a consistent way.

The design system becomes the governance layer for experience quality, allowing decentralised teams to scale without fragmenting the customer experience.

What strategic benefits does a multi-brand design system unlock for large organisations?

A shared system enables organisations to launch new brands or products much faster, because the foundational experience layer already exists.

It also allows businesses to scale innovation more effectively. When one team develops an improved pattern or interaction, that improvement can propagate across the entire ecosystem.

Perhaps most importantly, it supports cultural change in how businesses within a group work together. The system drives collaboration and shared benefits, helping to break down silos so individual businesses feel the collective strength of being within a group.

What advice would you give to leaders who are considering a multi-brand design system but are unsure where to start?

The biggest mistake organisations make is viewing a design system as something that is primarily visual, or that sits under the ownership of one particular function. It is a cross-functional product that sits at the intersection of design, engineering, operations, sales, marketing and brand.

Start by identifying shared experience problems and duplicated effort, ensuring that multiple perspectives are brought to the table. A design system succeeds when teams feel they are contributing to it, not being constrained by it.

From there, focus on building a small, robust foundation - a core component library, design tokens, and shared interaction principles are a good starting point. You don't need to tackle every problem at once. Focus on where the biggest value is and build up from there.

One of the biggest strengths of the design system is its scalability. The value of it grows the longer it's in use. Be comfortable starting small, knowing the pace of change will grow exponentially.

Fundamentally, any large multi-brand organisation will benefit from adopting a shared design system. If you recognise the challenges of not having such a shared digital foundation in place, get in touch to discuss how we can support transformation across your business or brand portfolio.

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