Design systems

Feb 8

I’ve created and helped build a variety of design systems. Here are a few things I learned along the way:

Make the working files THE design system - what I mean is, when you have to push component updates to a secondary location or tools like Zeplin, InVision’s Design System Manager, or another microsite to display the work and make it easy to browse, you risk it getting out of sync with production and add more manual work for the design team.
Start with an atomic design structure - Start small and build up to larger components. Nest symbols and instances so making changes to one area will propagate through the other design elements. It saves so much time! To better understand Atomic Design theory, read Brad Frost’s article.
Create the symbols after the design is about 50% “done” - before this point, you’ll be detaching instances and will have to rebuild the library of reusable components over and over again.

Content in progress…

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