Finance
Lumen Savings: the interface, not the marketing site
The tokens were bought for a brochure site and ended up running the account dashboard.
The work
- Client
- Lumen Savings
- Year
- 2025
- Our role
- Design system, product support
- Engagement length
- Ongoing retainer
- Headline result
- One token set, two codebases
This is the engagement that changed how we scope. Lumen came to us for a marketing site. Six weeks after launch their product team asked whether they could use the same tokens, because their design system had drifted and nobody wanted to own the reconciliation.
Why it transferred
Because the tokens are five numbers and a derivation rule, not a stylesheet. The product is a React application and shares no code with the WordPress site, but it consumes the same five values and produces the same palette. Nothing had to be ported; the rule was reimplemented in about forty lines.
What we would do differently
Ask earlier. If we had known the product team existed we would have written the derivation as a shared package on day one instead of month three.
Next
Tell us what youare actually trying to do.
Most engagements start with a ninety-minute call and a one-page note back. No deck, no discovery invoice.