Aphrodite
Role
Head of Design
Date
2023 – Ongoing
Responsabilities
Leadership
Design execution
Cross-team collaboration
Timeline
Ongoing
Context
When we kicked off the AskGamblers redesign it was clear that our existing design system had reached its limits. Styles were inconsistent, components were hard to maintain, and every new feature meant reinventing something that should have been reusable. It was the right time to step back and rebuild, not just the visuals, but the entire foundation connecting design and development. That is how Aphrodite was born: a system designed to bring clarity, consistency, and the ability to scale across all Gentoo Media brands.
The challenge
AskGamblers had been evolving for over a decade, built page by page, by many developers, and across three different design languages. Over time this created a patchwork of styles and inconsistent UI patterns.
Although we had previously introduced a basic UI kit and a set of shared components, the site remained labour-intensive to build and maintain. The system lacked a unified design language that could serve as a long-term foundation. Design and development teams often interpreted specs differently, leading to visual drift and rework. The legacy system had also grown monolithic and difficult to scale, making every new feature a challenge to integrate cleanly.
The redesign was our opportunity to break that cycle and rebuild a flexible, future-ready system that would bring coherence, efficiency, and longevity to the entire product ecosystem.
Approach
1.
Consistency
Every visual and behavioural decision should feel part of one ecosystem.
2.
Scalability
The system should support future brands and platforms with minimal friction.
3.
Efficiency
Designers and developers should speak the same visual language.
Foundations
Aphrodite is built on a small set of principles that shape every decision in the system. Rather than prescribing aesthetics, these principles define how components should behave, how information should be structured, and how the system should feel to use at scale.
System Architecture
Primitives
The foundation of Aphrodite starts with design tokens; colour, typography, and spacing definitions structured for scalability. Each primitives page in Figma includes context, usage rules, and live examples, helping new designers onboard faster and ensuring teams stay aligned.
Colours
Expanded palette with improved contrast and accessibility.
Typography
We introduced a typography system that is both strict and flexible. It’s divided into productive styles, used for UI elements, and expressive styles, designed for larger, more dynamic use cases. Instead of relying on HTML tags, all styles are defined on a consistent scale, ensuring clarity and visual harmony across the interface.
Spacing
Defined semantic spacing tokens to create consistent vertical and horizontal rhythm across components.
Components library
The library follows the principles of atomic design. Tokens form the foundation, defining the visual language and behaviour of the system. From there, we built simple components such as avatars, badges, breadcrumbs, and buttons. These elements became the building blocks for more complex structures like cards and carousels, eventually shaping entire pages.
We also introduced boolean and variant logic to reduce complexity. Instead of dozens of near-duplicate components, designers can now toggle states or styles directly within a single component, simplifying maintenance and ensuring consistency.
Good practices
Design for one screen, instance for others: We adopted a responsive-first approach where a single master component adapts seamlessly to all breakpoints.
Tokens before visuals: Every visual choice links to a token, ensuring scalability across multiple brands and themes.
Atomic design thinking: Components build from atoms upward, making it easier to modify one level without breaking the rest.
Impact
This is an abridged version of the case study. The full version, including detailed token documentation, component library structure, and file organisation, is available on request.