Creating a unified design system for adidas

Who, what & where

Client: adidas

Sector: Retail, e-commerce

Domain: Design systems

Location: Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Goal

adidas wanted customers to experience the same brand identity everywhere: on a website, in an app, in printed materials, or in a physical store. Different teams managed each channel separately, which made consistency hard to maintain. The company set out to build a single, scalable design system that could bring all touchpoints together.

Our role

To build the new system, adidas extended their team with Graeme, one of our senior software architects. Working directly with designers and developers, he helped extend the central Figma library and transform its assets into reusable React components and other platform-ready formats. This made it possible to apply the same look and feel consistently across web, mobile, print, and in-store displays.

The project coincided with adidas' collaboration with Beyoncé. Using the same approach, the team translated her mood boards into scalable digital outputs, while simultaneously sharpening the capabilities needed for adidas' uniform system.

Result & impact

Within six months the proof of concept was delivered on schedule. It worked across digital, print, and in-store displays, and was approved by adidas’s internal teams. More importantly, it was adopted into adidas’s three-year roadmap for company-wide implementation.

For adidas, this is more than a prototype. It sets the standard for brand consistency at an international level. In-house teams are learning to maintain and expand the system themselves, ensuring that knowledge remains in-house and that future partners and collaborations can connect immediately.