Standard Chartered Bank, Web & social templates
A multiple-phase project for Standard Chartered's web and social templates. The most recent phase applied the newly refreshed SC brand across the template library, polishing the social templates and extending them to cover regional market needs and different business audiences, from corporate and event communications to employer content.
- Role
- Design Lead
- Services
- Social design, Accessibility, Brand system
- Client
- Standard Chartered
Challenge
Refresh Standard Chartered's social media templates to reflect the new brand, improve consistency, and support teams with tools that are easier to use and faster to deploy. Each business unit, Corporate & CIB, Global Private Bank, Wealth & Retail Banking, and Employer Brand — has distinct audiences, markets and content needs, so the system had to flex to each of them (including regional and cultural nuance for markets like Hong Kong and Singapore, and partner-branding integration for Retail) without fragmenting into inconsistent, ad-hoc designs.
Approach
We ran a rigorous, insight-led process shaping a clearer, more consistent brand expression, structured around five principles: one flexible, content-led template framework that adapts to each business unit while preserving brand cohesion; designing with intent to balance global consistency with local nuance and partner needs; built-in clarity through labelling and visual cues so content is instantly recognisable; designing for speed with modular, editable layouts for rapid turnaround; and confidence at scale through updated guidance and best-practice examples.
Phase 1 · Phase 1
Built the foundation
Developed universal, corporate-led social templates aligned with the upgraded brand design system, addressing markets' immediate needs with a stronger tilt towards Corporate and CIB content. 32 CIB & Corporate templates plus 32 Global Private Bank templates — 64 templates in total.
Phase 2 · Phase 2
Scaling, diversifying and filling the gaps
Expanded and refined the system to close the gaps found in Phase 1, building a flexible, multi-platform, multi-format, multi-business template system informed by a stakeholder workshop on real usage scenarios. 76 CIB & Corporate, 75 Global Private Bank, 49 Wealth & Retail Banking and 58 Employer Brand designs, 258 designs across 4 ratios, 1,032 templates in total.
Key design decisions
The suite was built as a structured, scalable library of static templates supplied in Adobe Illustrator, all meeting WCAG 2.1 Level AA accessibility standards, designed for LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook across 4 key ratios (1:1, 2:3, 16:9 and vertical story), with up to 4 frames/layouts per template (excluding start/end frames) for storytelling flexibility. Each business unit was given its own visual expression within one connected system: Corporate & CIB and Global Private Bank as the master system, structured grids, premium typography, frame-led layouts for market insights and performance narratives; Wealth & Retail Banking with more energetic colour blocking, lifestyle imagery and partnership-ready layouts for regional and product storytelling; and Employer Brand dialled up in humanity, connected-line storytelling, portrait-driven layouts and hand-drawn expressive marks highlighting individuality and culture across 80k+ employees.
Outcome
Across Phase 1 and Phase 2, the work built a connected social media template ecosystem — a cohesive toolkit that translates brand principles into everyday content, blending deep audit insights with professional, production-ready templates guided by brand principles. Together, these elements ensure every business unit can create content that is instantly recognisable, consistently executed, and aligned to Standard Chartered's premium global brand, giving teams the clarity, confidence and structure to deliver high-quality content at scale, a unified ecosystem for consistent, premium social expression across every platform and business unit.
- 258
- Design assets produced in Phase 2 template development.
- 4
- Aspect ratios supported per platform.
- 1,032
- Templates delivered in Phase 2.
Reflection
The hardest balance was keeping four business units, each with their own audience, tone and market context, legible as one connected brand rather than four disconnected ones. Treating the master system (Corporate & CIB) as the anchor, then deliberately varying colour, imagery and storytelling for Private Bank, Wealth & Retail Banking and Employer Brand within that same structure, is what let each unit's content feel tailored without breaking brand cohesion.