Ismail Hamila

At Abstract Lab, an author-led distillation project by Rémy Savage & Nicolas Minisini, I took on the operational and digital structuring to give this vision the means to exist, scale, and resonate. My role sits at the crossroads of brand strategy, customer experience, and business operations: • Redesigned the e-commerce channel to make it more accessible, migrating the website from WooCommerce (outsourced) to Shopify (in-house), and optimizing the pricing and delivery policy—resulting in a +200% increase in orders within the first month. • Expanded product accessibility through a network of partner distributors (bars, restaurants, wine shops), personally leading outreach efforts (presentations, tastings, negotiations), which successfully reactivated the brand’s presence in Paris and secured key partnerships. • Structured Abstract Lab’s brand platform, by consolidating existing visual and editorial signifiers, enabling a consistent and coherent brand expression across all touchpoints. • Rationalized the internal tool ecosystem, reducing service costs (domains, hosting, CRM, etc.) by nearly 75% while increasing efficiency and control over daily digital operations. • Supported product and logistics development, assisting with recipe creation, supplier sourcing, and the implementation of merchandising elements aligned with the brand identity.

The Design Tokens Book is the first book ever published dedicated to Design Tokens. It aims to structure a still-emerging field by offering product teams a clear, educational, and actionable resource. The project was developed in a shifting landscape, with no official standard at the time of writing, and was designed to anticipate the real needs of Design System and Design Ops teams. • Wrote and published the very first book on Design Tokens, structuring the content in collaboration with domain experts such as Brad Frost, Ben Callahan, Lukas Oppermann, James Nash, Mike Kamminga, Samantha Gordashko, Louis Chenais, Audrey Hacq, Laurent Thiebault, and Estelle Pelleterat de Borde — to serve as a clear reference for teams seeking to industrialize their design practice. • Defined the editorial line and organized the content, ensuring the consistency of concepts, case studies, workshops, and contributions across 200+ pages. • Led the publishing and communication strategy, coordinating the launch and activating the design community through several meetups: – 3 editions in Paris (Carrefour & Specify, France TV & Tokens Studio, The Fork & Supernova) hosted at Frontguys – 1 in Lyon, in partnership with Friends of Figma and Le Wagon – 1 in Marseille, in collaboration with Le Laptop • Iterated the content with real-world feedback, gathered from workshops, critical readings, and discussions across the Design Ops ecosystem. • The book quickly became a key resource for Design System teams, offering an accessible, operational, and product-oriented approach.

Clients : - Boston Consulting Group (Conseil) / Design System & Design Ops - Nike (Retail - Sport) / Service Design - Tereos (Industriel) / Principal Designer - Engie (Energie) / Service & Product Designer - Emakina.FR (Agence) / UX & Service Design - Sanofi (Phrama) / Product Designer - Lord Token (Web3) / Design System & Product Design - KAWA Analitycs (Dashboarding & Dataviz) / Design System Consulting - Qard finance (Produit B2B) / UX & Product Design

Banque Delubac & Cie is a French banking group active in judicial, private, and corporate banking. I hold a dual role as both Designer and Product Manager, leading the creation, structuring, and product management of the Design System. • Evangelized Design System and Design Tokens concepts across design and tech teams by facilitating training sessions and raising stakeholder awareness on consistency and scalability challenges. • Designed and implemented a Design System from scratch, building components in parallel with interface design to accelerate delivery while ensuring coherence from the earliest stages. • Deployed agnostic Design Tokens in JSON format, in collaboration with engineering, using Tokens Studio to manage and sync tokens from Figma, and Style Dictionary to parse and transform outputs into Tailwind CSS — all structured with a clear taxonomy to streamline interface integration and component building. • Structured Design System Ops foundations, establishing the technical delivery layer: tool selection, base infrastructure, and a global QA process (visual tests, regression, accessibility, and interaction testing via Storybook and Chromatic) aligned with the company’s QA strategy. • Managed the DS squad as a Product Manager, steering the backlog and roadmap in ClickUp, defining agile rituals, and formalizing the delivery pipeline through shared Definition of Ready (DoR) and Definition of Done (DoD) frameworks. • Documented usage and governance rules in Docusaurus, ensuring scalability, team autonomy, and central access to best practices, contribution guidelines, and implementation processes. • Established adoption tracking, with dedicated KPIs (UI coverage, usage rate, cross-team feedback) to evaluate impact and guide prioritization of Design System improvements.

Strategic mission at Chanel, an iconic French luxury brand, to support the transformation of its Design System into a transversal product at the scale of the company. In a context combining high brand standards with complex organizational structures, the goal was to assess the system’s maturity and provide actionable recommendations to strengthen its structure, industrialization, and adoption. • Conducted a comprehensive audit of the existing Design System, identifying strengths and friction points across design, technical, and organizational dimensions. • Outlined strategic recommendations regarding system structure, governance, integration workflows, and supporting tools. • Facilitated cross-functional workshops (design, product, tech) to co-create design processes and define shared practices through a Design System Ops approach. • Led internal advocacy efforts to evolve the perception of the system beyond a simple UI Kit, laying the foundation for a scalable and strategic design product. • Supported key stakeholders, delivering tailored sessions to align teams around a product-driven Design System vision. • Proposed tooling strategies to improve consistency, accelerate industrialization, and empower team autonomy.

With Hekko Agency Advanced two-day training delivered to two groups of 8 to 10 designers at BNP Paribas, covering Figma’s key features and advanced Design System concepts. The program spanned from fundamentals to components, variables, and Design Tokens, combining theory, hands-on practice, and live demonstrations. • Designed and delivered a complete training program, tailored to participants’ skill levels and project needs. • Structured a progressive curriculum, from Figma basics to advanced Design System logic: components, tokens, variables, and mode management. • Introduced Design Tokens concepts, through a theoretical module to support understanding of variable structures within Figma. • Strengthened operational expertise, through practical exercises, guided demos, and real-world use case discussions. • Facilitated on-site sessions, with a dual role as expert trainer and workshop facilitator. Topics covered: Figma fundamentals, responsive design, components & libraries, plugins, Design Tokens, variables & modes, prototyping

At La Redoute, I held a dual role as Designer and Product Manager for the Design System, with a cross-functional scope encompassing design quality, product structuring, operational efficiency, and interdisciplinary collaboration across design, product, tech, and marketing. • Built the Web & App Design System from scratch, following a progressive adoption strategy grounded in real-world usage. → Adopted by 4 product teams, with over 150 components delivered into production. • Structured the Design Tokens and UI foundations, defining a robust taxonomy and setting up a technical stack based on Figma, Tokens Studio, and Storybook. → Resulted in a 45% reduction in duplicated/inconsistent components identified in the initial audit. • Realigned Product–Design–Tech architecture, by running multi-squad workshops to define a shared product breakdown: Product > Theme > Epic > Features. → Applied in Figma and Confluence, reducing ticket resolution time by 20%, then 30%. • Unified stakeholders (Design, Product, Tech, Marketing) around a product-centric vision of the Design System through collaborative workshops, targeted advocacy, and shared governance. → 8 internal presentations, 12 contribution cycles, 42 validated components. • Trained and mentored marketing design teams on Figma and Design System principles, creating internal ambassadors to strengthen collaboration between product and marketing. → Improved visual coherence across product and marketing environments. • Oversaw the design of critical components, directly supporting the rebranding of La Redoute and AMPM. → 120 components integrated, covering 80% of key e-commerce user journeys. • Established operational governance for the Design System, managing backlog, roadmap, contribution process, debt tracking, and team rituals. → Enabled autonomy for 4 design teams, reducing off-system design requests by 40%.

Strategic mission to initiate the structuring of a multi-brand Design System in a context of significant technical debt and strong performance constraints. • Led a collaborative UI audit across 7 key brands, analyzing the 5 most critical pages of each site. The audit was conducted through in-person workshops to foster collective intelligence and break down silos between disciplines (design, product, tech) and brands. • Defined the foundations of the future Design System, by creating a shared CORE Design Tokens base, paving the way for modularity, abstraction, and theming capabilities. • Proposed a pragmatic technical solution, introducing Web Components (HTML, CSS, Vanilla.js) as a scalable front-end layer, respecting the existing architecture without imposing a full-stack overhaul. • Facilitated workshops for Design System onboarding and operational structuring, educating designers, developers, and managers on structuring principles, reusability, and interface industrialization. • Supported maturity growth and key decision-making, by clarifying technical feasibility, setting priorities, and guiding choices in an environment with limited leadership structure.

Transition mission to maintain and strengthen the Design System, structuring its governance, managing its delivery, and reinforcing its strategic position within the product organization. • Led the Design System squad (front-end developers based in India), ensuring component delivery while fostering an open contribution dynamic with Product Designers. • Structured the Design System’s governance and processes, working closely with both Design Ops and Product Ops teams, establishing team rituals, initiating the first OKRs, and driving transversal synchronization. • Implemented a cross-team contribution model, organizing office hours, collaborative design review sessions, and pair design workshops to support the designers’ skill development. This approach increased active contributions to the Design System by 30% and reduced component inconsistency rates by 20%. • Rationalized and globalized design contributions, consolidating inputs from various squads to ensure cross-product coherence and standardization. • Drove incremental evolution of components, integrating field feedback while maintaining continuous compliance with accessibility standards. • Adapted squad management practices to a multicultural context (Indian development team), ensuring effective communication and collaboration in English.

Delivered a course module on UX Strategy, focusing on design maturity and organizational change dynamics. • Designed and led an introductory module on change management, using the role and maturity of design as a lens to explore transformation in product-driven organizations. • Introduced key concepts such as design maturity, strategic vision, and design culture, helping students navigate internal organizational dynamics. • Guided learners in developing a strategic mindset, bridging UX issues, professional posture, and the role of design in digital transformation. • Applied an active pedagogy, using real-world case studies, scenario-based learning, and collective reflection on the role of design in organizations.