Solar Design System and Sunrise UI Kits
Context & Challenge
Sunrise was undergoing a merger and preparing a major rebrand when I joined the team. Design was fragmented, with duplicated patterns, inconsistent quality, and a disjoint infrastructure. A unified system was needed to accelerate delivery and ensure consistency.
My Approach
Led the creation of the Solar Design System and UI Kits, establishing the technical foundation, scalable variables, and component hierarchies.
To assure governance, I introduced prioritization and documentation practices that kept the system adaptable while ensuring quality. As part of the evagelization of the system, I led onboarding initiatives, made the system publicly available online and created an open channel for feedback from designers and developers.
Obs: The public domain is currently managed by other professionals. Please get in contact if you wish to see more.
Solar Design System Library
Consisting of style guidelines, components and patterns, the assets in the design library of Solar were used by all the digital teams of the company, as well as by external vendors.
The assets also served as inspiration to products managed by other internal bureaus and the B2B units.
Web Accessibility standards
Accessibility became a central focus in the evolution of Solar.
I initiated and led an accessibility research project in partnership with the Master Degree of User Experience Design of the University of Chur (FHGR), auditing products for compliance. Findings shaped new standards for color contrast, keyboard navigation, alt text, and semantic structures, which were embedded into the system.
Building a design system is only the start—the real impact comes when it’s adopted across the organisation. To scale Solar, I focused on three measures:
- Identity & ownership: launched an open vote to name the system, engaging 200+ stakeholders and fostering buy-in.
- Onboarding integration: made Solar part of every new employee’s induction, ensuring early adoption
- Community engagement: shared Solar at industry events, strengthening credibility and connecting with peers.
These efforts turned Solar into a cultural driver at Sunrise, enabling consistency, efficiency, and a design-centric mindset across teams.
Impact
Since its creation, Solar Design System has become a cornerstone of Sunrise’s digital ecosystem.
Usage steadily grew to peaks of 41k component inserts per week, with nearly 1,500 stakeholders working daily with its 700 components and 65 styles, integrated into all new design files. Adoption extended beyond Sunrise teams, with external agencies also relying on Solar for their work with Sunrise.
In 2023 alone, the system generated an estimated CHF 1.5M in savings, driven by faster prototyping, improved efficiency, reduced costs, and stronger brand consistency.