CORE: Building a Multi-Brand Design Ecosystem

Background

Our Aceable design system — originally named VISION (the project title established prior to my arrival) — proved to be a major success. It significantly elevated the user experience across Aceable’s platforms while also driving measurable performance improvements in both our driving and real estate verticals. With a strong, flexible system in place, the next challenge became clear: how do we scale this success across Aceable’s broader portfolio of brands without starting from scratch?

That question led us to iDriveSafely and DriversEd.com (both drivers ed companies) and, eventually, to PrepAgent, a recently acquired real estate licensing platform.


The Challenge

Each brand presented a different starting point. iDriveSafely and DriversEd.com desperately needed a complete overhaul, both aesthetically and from a UX/UI perspective. Inconsistent layouts, dated visuals, and fragmented interaction patterns made it difficult to deliver a modern, intuitive learning experience or establish credibility within the market.

PrepAgent was already in relatively good shape, with a functional interface and a more modern baseline. However, the platform needed to be migrated, and maintaining its existing, fully custom styling would have added unnecessary complexity and long-term overhead. Rather than replicating PrepAgent’s exact visual system we made a strategic decision to fold it into CORE’s component architecture, allowing us to streamline the migration, reduce engineering lift, and create a more scalable foundation while preserving PrepAgent’s brand identity.

Project Goals

Rather than designing three entirely new systems (or duplicating each design system file), we made a deliberate decision to extend the Aceable design system — now formalized as CORE — across all brands. Using Figma variables, we applied CORE as a shared structural foundation across brands. This allowed each product to leverage the same underlying system, including:

• Component structures: Flexible page sections designed to support a wide range of content, layouts, and media types without feeling rigid or prescriptive.

• Element structures: Standardized foundations for typography, color, buttons, inputs, and other UI elements, defined by how they function on the page rather than by visual style.

At the same time, each brand retained its own identity through controlled variation:

• Brand-specific color palettes

• Distinct typography

• Stylistic differences tailored to each audience (without impacting component structure)