Carlsberg Group Design System — Malty
From Zero to Hero: Building a Scalable Design Language for a Global Brand
The Problem We Were Solving
Before 2017, Carlsberg Group’s digital ecosystem looked like a patchwork quilt stitched by too many hands. Products were developed by agencies spread across the globe. Many were “off-the-shelf” solutions, each with its own technology stack, design quirks, and UX patterns.
The result?
- No consistent brand identity in digital touchpoints
- Broken experiences (outdated content, broken links, redundant apps)
- High maintenance costs and duplicated work
Carlsberg needed more than just a facelift — it needed a unified design system to bring order, consistency, and speed to its digital products.
Strategy & Key Actions
1. Getting the Buy-In
No design system succeeds without executive backing. To make the case:
- We built a roadshow deck showing how reusable components cut design/development time.
- We mapped time saved directly to business value — faster releases, lower costs, and better UX.
- Once leaders saw the early wins, investment followed.
2. Product Mapping
We started by mapping Carlsberg’s digital footprint. The audit revealed:
- 350+ apps across markets (many forgotten or unused)
- 28% with broken images or links
- 40% with inconsistent visual identity
This digital archaeology validated our need for Malty: one system to unify them all.
3. Governance First
We built a dedicated Design System squad:
- 1 Design Lead
- 1 UX/UI Designer
- 2 Front-end Developer
This team acted as the bridge between markets, agencies, and internal stakeholders. By defining ownership and contribution rules early, we set Malty up for scalable growth..
4. Component Library Audit
We audited two major products and built a component inventory:
- Tracked component frequency & dependencies
- Prioritized components based on business criticality + usage
- Created a “single source of truth” for designers and developers
5. Naming & Structure
To keep things scalable, we defined clear naming conventions:
- No “Button1 / Button2” chaos
- Every component had semantic names tied to its role, not its style
This avoided duplication, eased discovery, and made collaboration smoother.
6. Building with Atomic Design
We followed an Atomic Design methodology:
- Atoms → typography, icons, colors
- Molecules → form fields, input groups
- Organisms → product cards, login modules
Breaking the system into building blocks kept it modular and reusable.
7. Documenting in ZeroHeight
Documentation was critical for adoption. Malty’s documentation included:
- How to use & contribute — contribution model for designers & dev
- Foundations — colors, typography, spacing, grids
- Components — specs, code snippets, do’s & don’ts
We turned ZeroHeight into Carlsberg’s design wiki, where anyone could get aligned in minutes.
Success Metrics
We tracked adoption, efficiency, and brand consistency. Here’s a snapshot of Malty’s impact in its first 12 months:
- Adoption Rate: 72% of active digital products migrated to Malty components (target was 60%).
- Efficiency Gains: Design + development time for new features dropped by 12% on average.
- Error Reduction: Support tickets related to UI inconsistencies decreased by 38%.
- Team Satisfaction: Internal survey showed 84% of designers and developers found Malty “highly effective” for daily work.
Takeaway
Malty transformed Carlsberg’s fragmented digital ecosystem into a cohesive, scalable design language. What began as “just another project” evolved into the foundation of Carlsberg’s digital brand experience — unifying hundreds of products, saving teams countless hours, and raising the bar for design maturity inside the company.