  Communication Design
  Report Systems
  Presentation Design

Building Scalable Templates for First Trust’s CWS Communications

From internal email campaigns to executive reports and advisor proposals, I developed reusable templates that ensured consistency, scalability, and a clear design voice for Custom Wealth Solution’s (CWS) growing strategies.

Role

Senior Product Designer

Company

First Trust Portfolios

Timeframe

2024 — 2025

The Challenge

This team was new after acquisitions (Veriti + Gyroscope). Marketing had created some collateral, but there was no unified communication system.

New Team, New Needs

CWS required a unified voice across their communication channels.

Scaling Strategies

Templates had to support multiple evolving business strategies.

Path to Automation

Consistent UI was essential for handoff to development.

CWS needed communication systems that could scale from day one — templates built to handle growth, align teams, and prepare for automation.

Complex Prospect Setup (Copy) (Copy) (Copy) (Copy)

Data-Dense Prospect Lists (Copy) (Copy) (Copy) (Copy)

Overloaded Account Views (Copy) (Copy) (Copy) (Copy)

Nested Customization Controls (Copy) (Copy) (Copy) (Copy)

Exhaustive Exclusion Options (Copy) (Copy) (Copy) (Copy)

Fragmented Dashboard Experience (Copy) (Copy) (Copy) (Copy)

My Approach

Email Templates

Designed repeatable formats for weekly and monthly CWS communications.

Executive Reporting

Created a scalable business summary report for leadership.

Advisor Proposals

Established report templates for advisor-facing strategies, then guided marketing + dev to scale.

Every deliverable was designed as a system — ensuring collateral could scale, be maintained, and eventually be automated.

The Impact

Reduced Tech Debt

Templates reduced rework and set the stage for automation.

Cross-Team Alignment

Simplified collaboration between sales, marketing, and development.

Sustained Value

Templates continue to guide new strategies and collateral today.

Accounts Dashboard Table

Console’s dense tables made account scanning difficult. Bespoke reduced row density, improved spacing, and emphasized the most critical data for faster readability.

Console (Before) (Copy) (Copy) (Copy) (Copy)

Bespoke (After) (Copy) (Copy) (Copy) (Copy)

Click on an image to enlarge it.

Account Detail Dashboard

Console’s account views buried key metrics in visual noise. Bespoke streamlined the layout with clearer hierarchy, surfacing performance and tax alpha insights at a glance.

Console (Before) (Copy) (Copy) (Copy) (Copy)

Bespoke (After) (Copy) (Copy) (Copy) (Copy)

Click on an image to enlarge it.

What started as a set of templates has become the backbone of CWS communications, reducing friction today and setting a scalable foundation for tomorrow.

Looking Ahead

Email Automation

Moving weekly and monthly communications fully into Sales Overview, so distribution no longer requires developer intervention.

Executive Reports

Transitioning quarterly Business Summary Reports from manual InDesign updates to one-click generation.

Advisor Proposals

Continuing to refine advisor-facing templates as new business strategies and collateral emerge.

Automation will transform CWS communications into scalable, one-click outputs — reducing tech debt and freeing the team to focus on strategy.

Team

Tyler Otte
Developer

Claire Wagner
Developer

Matt Adomschick
Software Developer

Drew Baker
Senior Product Designer

Thanks for exploring this case study.

Continue exploring other projects in my portfolio to see more of my design process in action.

Explore More Projects