How to build a strong email design system that speeds up your teamwork using Stripo

Teamwork efficiency in email production is like a Rubik’s cube. If you only solve one side, you’ll always break another, but if you follow a proven algorithm, level by level, everything can work out.

In email production, an email design system (EDS) can serve as such an algorithm. This tool allows even large distributed teams to work efficiently while maintaining brand consistency across all emails.

In our previous article on EDSs, we described what they are, the components they consist of, step-by-step routing, and how to create such a system using JSON tokens or within the sending platform.

However, if you’re starting email production in Stripo, you can use its capabilities to define key email brand design requirements and configure everything so that the design isn’t compromised during email creation. We’ll explain how to do this in this article.

Key takeaways 

1. An EDS should function as an email production environment, providing tools that make it easy to create beautiful emails and virtually impossible to create “bad” ones.
2. The system’s three structural layers ensure brand consistency while still being flexible enough to handle any email campaign.
3. The system should not only be self-documenting but also actionable. It should enhance workflows, not restrict them.

What is an email design system, and why do teams need it?

Most marketing teams are accustomed to working with brand guidelines, which contain all the basic rules for using colors, fonts, tones of voice, and much more. All team members have access to them, and the manager then ensures that everyone strictly follows them to maintain brand consistency.

This is complex, takes up a lot of resources, and reduces work efficiency.

That’s why the evolution has shifted toward creating a system that will help all team members create brand-consistent emails equally effectively.

An email design system is a reusable and scalable framework for creating branded, consistent, and accessible emails. It’s flexible enough to create a wide range of designs and restrictive enough to maintain consistency and brand identity. Instead of starting from scratch each time, teams use reusable components that were designed and built once and then used across every email.

An EDS is built on components of varying complexity (individual elements, modules, and entire templates) and documentation describing their use. We’ll dive into this in more detail below.

Why your team needs an email design system

It doesn’t restrict creative thinking but rather sets a framework within which emails always remain correct and on-brand.

In this sense, the system isn’t simply a set of templates and standards but rather the configuration of all these requirements in a common environment (for example, an email editor) where the entire team works and everyone can easily use it. 

Implementing an EDS will bring the following benefits to your team:

• reduce repetitive errors by saving and reusing correct designs;
• speed up email creation by using pre-built templates, blocks, and modules, all in one place;
• simplify work with technical aspects of emails, accessibility, and dark mode, as you can save data modules in an EDS;
• allow easy knowledge transfer, as results are already collected and saved in the system;
• allow assignment of roles and responsibilities for each email campaign.

Let’s explore how to create such a system and what it should include.

Create your own email design system step by step in Stripo

The foundation of an EDS comprises brand colors, fonts, and assets, including logos, icons, and images. These are typically developed by designers for all communication channels and then handed over to the email marketing team for use.

Using the apt terms outlined by Mark Robbins on DDMA EMAS, we can distinguish the following levels within email design that help maintain brand consistency and all email requirements: atoms, molecules, and organisms.

1. Atoms

Atoms are the smallest design elements: text styles for headings and paragraphs, buttons, images, icons, and dividers. The colors and fonts of all these elements must be approved, and font sizes must adhere to a specific scale.

To form atoms in the system, you can use tokens. These are basic variables that define colors, fonts, margin sizes, and corner radii. Thanks to this, every email automatically conforms to the visual identity: if the brand changes colors or typography, the tokens are adjusted rather than dozens of templates needing to be manually updated.

Atom doesn’t have free rein: if it’s a primary button, it always uses the primary color, fixed padding, and a fixed font size. Variations may exist (for example, ghost or secondary), but each variation is strictly defined by tokens.

How to use settings in the Stripo editor to make atoms

In Stripo, you can configure atom parameters at the settings level. To do this, go to Settings—Workspace—Group and Projects, choose one project or group, and set style options.

Here, you can see how to set primary brand colors and fonts in Stripo. These settings will be applied as defaults to all emails in a group or project.

2. Molecules 

Molecules are combinations of atoms that form repeatable functional content blocks like headers, footers, product cards, and CTAs.

For example:

• a text + CTA button; 
• a badge paired with a short line of copy; 
• a testimonial card with an image, name, and quote. 

The same set of atoms can be used in different ways, but the composition, display logic, and constraints are already fixed within the module. You can’t “shove” something inside that breaks the meaning or structure, even if it visually “almost fits.” Offering two or three presets per block is sufficient to cover needs while reducing the need for custom styling.

You can create and save modules in your EDS, ensuring that this email element is tested and consistent with your brand style. You can edit the content of modules in new emails, while the design and all settings remain unchanged. If you build a new module, it’s easier to test because everything else is already solid.

How to use modules in Stripo for brand consistency

Modular email design is the key philosophy behind Stripo’s EDS, as modules are versatile and convenient components that can be used to assemble emails like Lego bricks.

Here’s what will help you build your EDS:

• Email modules library 

Choose from ready-made modules in the email modules library and add them to your account in the editor.

Use a library of your modules inside the editor, which contains automatically added modules from your templates and those that you add to the library yourself.

If your team frequently reuses specific modules, take advantage of Stripo’s module-saving feature. Identify your most frequently used blocks and save them, complete with all settings, to your library for quick and consistent use in new emails.

After saving, you can select the desired module from the library or use it directly in the editor:

You can also take advantage of the extensive capabilities of the module management in Stripo, which you can read about in detail in this article.

• Smart modules

Smart elements are a functionality designed by Stripo. It allows you to automate email production. This is a true time-saver for those who build multiple product cards and email digests. You configure them once and use them across numerous promo campaigns.

• Synchronized modules

Using synchronized modules for those that are used in all emails, such as the basic header and footer, will save you time when you need to replace a single link in 100 previously created template variations.

3. Organisms

Organisms are larger structures that repeat across campaigns: headers, footers, preference strips, and legal sections. These should include rules for placement and specify the required elements, such as the unsubscribe link and company address.

These are combinations of modules or blocks that create a coherent email fragment. A section doesn’t simply assemble modules; it defines the distances between them, the order of elements, and the context of interaction. For example, a blog section can contain a headline, a grid of cards, and a CTA, but it’s impossible to insert a completely foreign block within it that would disrupt the grid or hierarchy.

EDS organisms are predefined layouts made of modules, such as a blog post layout with image, text, and CTA, and master templates, which are created for emails with similar purposes and structures and then simply reused. Elements of this level enforce structural consistency across emails.

How Stripo helps at this level

At this level, we’re talking about more complex modules, but the working principle in Stripo remains the same as we discussed above, as in Stripo, you can work with both the smallest content blocks and entire structures.

Additionally, you can save and reuse entire email templates, known as master templates, for different email campaigns. To keep them readily available, it’s convenient to store them in a separate folder within your account or in pinned templates or entire folders. You can use this to ensure that key templates are always at the top and easily accessible to the entire team.

A true email design system is built according to this principle, level by level: tokens → atoms → modules → sections. It prevents you from “cooking up an email haphazardly” because each level sets clear standards. The marketer can change the content, the designer can change the variants, and the copywriter can change the texts, but no one can violate the brand’s foundation.

Documentation for your email design system 

Describing all system elements clearly and accessibly is your next task after creating an EDS. Good documentation helps you avoid guessing “how to do it right” and instead works confidently and consistently.

Here’s what EDS documentation can include to ensure ease of use:

• brand guidelines, which summarize basic parameters like color tokens, typography, margins, radii, and grid rules;
• the logic behind design and implementation decisions: not just how to use, for example, modules, but why they were built that way. For example, why does a product page have three elements instead of four? Why is there always one CTA button? Why is the text positioned above the image? This fosters unified thinking within the team and reduces the risk of chaotic decisions;
• HTML usage comments included in modules and templates help developers and designers use the block correctly: which parameters can be changed, which cannot, and what is required for the component. This format is self-documenting of the interface: any change is visible where it is applied;
• a record of test results, lessons learned, and subscriber persona insights for different modules and templates. If a module was tested and one variant won, this should be documented. This will prevent new designers from repeating experiments or making mistakes that the team has already tested.

The main challenges of creating documentation for the email design system

A common mistake is writing documentation for the sake of documentation. Comments are needed to explain important decisions, not to mask poor code. Experienced teams strive for a self-explanatory system, with documentation supplemented by standards and test results that provide clear evidence of their effectiveness.

Another challenge is knowledge versioning. You create a module, describe its parameters and use cases, and then test the alternative that yields the best results. Over time, it becomes necessary to document these changes and update the relevant records. This prevents repeated attempts to “reinvent the wheel” and allows for informed decision-making.

What can be used for EDS documentation in Stripo?

For the first level of documentation, you can generate a brand guideline based on email templates built right into the Stripo editor. The system automatically creates a branded guide that includes all the essential elements, which you can export as a PDF or store inside the editor. 

When saving a module in Stripo, you can assign a name, add a brief description, highlight key usage features, test results, and categorize it by assigning it to a category or multiple hashtags. This turns each module into a self-documenting object: easy to find, understand, and implement without unnecessary explanations or repeated experiments.

Wrapping up

So, moving line by line, you’ve solved the Rubik’s cube, stringing one level upon another, maintaining it, and preserving the progress made so far. Utilizing all the structural elements of an EDS will enable your team, regardless of its size and distribution, to work effectively, creating brand-consistent emails that are also technically tested.