Designing a Scalable System That Bridges Strategy and Store Execution

A UX Systems Case Study

The Style Guide is a digital, internal toolkit used by all divisions under the Gap Inc brand. It aligns cross-functional teams on seasonal visual merchandising strategy, product data, and brand guidelines to ensure consistent, on-brand execution across every store location.

About

The Old Navy Style Guide is a toolkit built for visual merchandising managers and cross-functional teams giving everyone a shared foundation for consistency, clarity and alignment.

It integrates brand guidelines, product data, and design systems to deliver an exceptional in-store customer experience for every customer.

It also serves as the connective bridge between corporate and field teams, supporting the end-to-end workflows that bring the brand to life in every store.

What The Style Guide Includes

Store layouts and visual mapping
Seasonal marketing and visual strategy
Guidelines and step-by-step how-tos
Product data, images and illustrations
Key merchandising elements and presentation standards

These resources improve efficiency, strengthen communication across teams, and support sales through consistent in-store execution aligned with Old Navy’s business goals.

Why This Project Exists

As Old Navy transitioned from printed to fully digital Style Guides, stores began receiving large volumes of new merchandise without timely corporate direction. Without clear guidance, products sat in stockrooms instead of reaching the sales floor, creating missed sales opportunities and inconsistent customer experiences.

At the same time, the Visual Communications Design team faced growing demand to produce fast, scalable Style Guides with limited resources.

This project exists to eliminate ambiguity in merchandising decision by providing clear visual guidance that helps stores move product to the floor faster, drive consistency, and recover missed sales opportunities.

Role

I was brought onto the team for my hybrid background in UX/UI, graphic design, and first-hand experience as a field Visual Merchandising Manager. Having used Style Guides as an end user, I understood operational constraints, tradeoffs, workflows and the end-to-end product journey, informing research, UX decisions, visual design and the evolution of the Style Guide system.

I worked closely with Visual Merchandising, Product Managers, Merchants, Styling, Marketing, Photographers and store visual and operations partners across all divisions.

My Role: Visual Designer
The Team: Visual Communications Director, Designer I, UXDesigner and Senior Visual Merchandising Manager Partners: Corporate & Field Visual Merchandising Teams
Tools: InDesign, Illustrator, Figma, Miro, Airtable

THE CONTEXT

UNDERSTANDING THE END-TO-END BUSINESS WORKFLOW

Before diving into the Style Guide framework, we must understand the full product journey, from initial concept to store execution and where breakdowns occur. This the spine.

The Ecosystem

Style Guides exist within a complex ecosystem of teams:

Corporate Visual Merchandising
Corporate Creative Design
Merchants, Product & Marketing
Field Visual Merchandising
Field Logistics & Store Operations

Each team plays a distinct role, but success depends on one thing: alignment.

Two Parallel Workflows

The Corporate Workflow:
Design & Visual Merchandising teams define a design system crafting the seasonal strategy, brand guidelines, product priorities, marketing and storytelling.

The Field Workflow:
Field Visual Merchandising and Logistics teams execute the corporate visual strategy in stores, placing products, setting floor sets, and bringing the brand vision to life.

When these workflows are not aligned, execution suffers.

The Customer at the Center

All teams work toward a shared goal: delivering an accessible, affordable, and easy to shop experience for our customer. Our approach is rooted in human-centered design, aligning customer needs with business goals. By keeping the customer at the center of every decision, we create experiences that are both meaningful for the customer and impactful for the business.

THE CHALLENGE

FIELD MANAGERS ARE LEFT SCRAMBLING WITHOUT VISUAL DIRECTION

➡️ New merchandise arrives in stores in large volumes.
➡️ Without clear direction from corporate, store teams don’t know where or how to place it.

➡️ Products sit in stockrooms instead of on the sales floor.
➡️ Customers don’t see the new product.
➡️ The business loses sales.

THIS IS A GRAPHIC/VISUAL OF THE STEPS BELOW

LIKE A BIG PICTURE

Field Visual Merchandising Managers receive large volumes of new products that must be placed on the sales floor. Without a Style Guide providing actionable direction, teams are forced to improvise under time constraints, leading to inconsistent execution, delayed floor sets, and misalignment with brand standards.

The Problem, Explained Simply

Defining the Goal

Objective

Design a comprehensive Style Guide that translates corporate visual merchandising strategy into clear, executable guidance for field teams supporting a faster execution, consistent product placement, and a cohesive customer experience across all Old Navy stores.

Customer Impact

By providing clear instructions on how, what, why, when, and where to place products, the Style Guide empowers field teams to deliver cohesive floor presentations.

This ensures that Jenny can walk into any Old Navy store and easily find what she came for within a consistent, on-brand environment.

Why It Matters

Visual Merchandising is part of a larger cross-functional process that begins long before a product reaches stores. Without a system to align decisions across teams, corporate intent can be lost before it reaches the field.

The Style Guide functions as a design system for visual merchandising, translating strategy into scalable, repeatable execution.

When large volumes of new products arrive in stores without aligned guidance, full-price merchandise frequently remains in back rooms instead of driving daily business goals on the sales floor. Field teams are prepared to execute, but lack the direction needed to act effectively.

THE BUSINESS CHALLENGE

KICK OFF

PICKING UP THE PIECES

THE DISCOVERY

THE DISCOVERY

The Persona

Jenny: a busy mom who values simplicity, style, and affordability.

DEEPER INSIGHTS

Design Process, Ideation & Concepts

REFRAMING THE PROBLEM

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