A DesignOps initiative that turned a design bottleneck into a revenue-generating, cross-functional capability, built entirely on tools the team already had.
Outcomes
- Shipped as a real product — Design Studio 2.0 — now in beta with large clients, with built-in AI image generation.
- Generated new recurring revenue in its first month after training the team.
- Shipped entirely without engineering — no tickets, no sprints, no deployment.
- Took the CSM team from zero Figma proficiency to independently customizing, exporting, and proposing print assets.
The bottleneck
As the product designer responsible for several products, I had neither the core expertise nor the bandwidth for bespoke, customized print assets. But that's exactly what started arriving from the customer success team. Our legacy in-platform postcard tool was restrictive and limited to a single postcard template with no options for customization. Saying yes to every request wasn't sustainable but saying no left clients without support. The question was how to fix the system, not just manage the requests.
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The Insight
A viable solution was already in the room. The team had Figma. Figma Buzz (a publicly available Figma tool) launched around this time and enabled print-ready asset creation directly within the tool. Although we wanted to build our own tool, I had the vision of an MVP, building the right system inside an already-available tool that I could teach staff to get up and running within days instead of months.
The System
The print template library was built on two principles: flexibility and foolproofness. Every template used Figma's auto-layout and constraint system to handle variable content (different business names, different service lists, different logo sizes) without breaking the layout. A CSM with no design background could swap in a client's brand, adjust copy, and export a print-ready file in minutes.
Every component was built to print mail asset standards, ensuring the new templates felt consistent with the broader product visual language and did not present issues for content to be cut off accidentally during printing.
The Training Program
Building the system was only half the job. The second half was human, training the entire CSM team to use Figma confidently and simply enough to service clients independently.
The training covered the essentials: how to navigate the template library, how to swap brand assets and copy, how to export print-ready files, and how to identify when a client needed something beyond the existing templates. Beyond the basics, CSMs were encouraged to suggest new template ideas and flag gaps in the library, turning them from passive users into active contributors to the system. Being trainer and designer of tools to elevate internal teams felt like the right thing.
Impact & Reflection
The print asset system began generating recurring revenue within weeks of training — a direct result of the CSM team's ability to service client print requests independently and at speed.
Critically, the entire solution was delivered without engineering involvement. I identified the problem, built the system in an existing tool, trained the team, and shipped value directly to end customers with zero overhead (except perhaps for a few new Figma licenses).
The more durable outcome was organizational. The CSM team went from having no Figma proficiency to confidently customizing, exporting, and proposing new print assets without design involvement. A single DesignOps initiative freed the design team to focus on higher-leverage product work and created a repeatable system that continued generating value long after it shipped.
From Templates to Product
The initiative didn't stop there. The commercial validation of print assets as a real customer need directly informed a new product direction — Design Studio 2.0, a next-generation postcard creator built into the platform.
Design Studio 2.0 opens up the creation canvas with multiple templates, AI image generation, and updated tools and UI controls — giving customers far more room to customize and design cards that represent their business best. Those templates are based on the auto-layout Figma system I originally built for the CSM team: the same constraints that added structure and rigidity to their workflow, reducing positioning and alignment errors, now make a far more capable canvas accessible and easy to learn. Constraint, it turns out, is what makes a creative tool approachable.
Several large clients are beta-testing Design Studio 2.0 today, while the CSM team continues to capture MRR delivering white-glove print service through the original Figma templates. Feedback from both — real jobs completed in Figma and early sessions in the new studio — is what will eventually let us sunset Figma and ship the proprietary tool in its most user-friendly form.
What I'm proudest of: the Figma MVP solved the right user experience for print asset creation first — grounded in informed decisions around Figma Buzz and auto-layout templating — and it's still proving valuable as the usability benchmark our proprietary tools are now designed against.