đź“ť Articles
Not tokens
Donnie examines which values shouldn't become design tokens, arguing that tokenising constants like zero, transparent, and full rounding creates maintenance overhead without flexibility. Tokens should capture design decisions that vary across contexts—by theme, density, or expression—whilst self-evident values already communicate intent clearly. By distinguishing between tokens and constants, teams maintain leaner, more purposeful systems.
Building Your Design System Workflow - Rituals and Templates
In my article, I outline strategies for establishing effective workflows within design systems to reduce chaos and enhance collaboration. I emphasise the importance of clear contribution processes, decision-making structures, and documentation to ensure that teams can easily propose and implement new ideas. By focusing on rituals that promote engagement and transparency, I highlight how design systems can evolve and adapt to meet the needs of growing teams, ultimately improving the overall user experience and system reliability.
đź‘€ Interesting Reads
What is product craft in the age of AI and design systems?
Ben explores how design systems set a quality floor but product teams determine the quality ceiling through their craft and choices. Rather than stepping back, design system teams should co-define what quality means with product teams, enabling both to work towards shared standards. By evaluating results and baking successful patterns back into the system, teams create a continuous loop that raises both floor and ceiling.
A design system is a system of truth
Kevin highlights the importance of documenting the reasoning behind design decisions within design systems. He notes that many design systems operate with multiple rulebooks, leading to confusion and drift. By creating a comprehensive rulebook that captures essential truths, teams can ensure clarity and consistency, empowering them to focus on solving new problems effectively.
Your documentation is still in your Mum's filing cabinet
Geri examines how folder-based documentation hierarchies inherited from 1970s office metaphors fail both humans and AI. Effective documentation prioritises discoverability through search, metadata, tagging and cross-linking rather than forcing knowledge into single locations. Treating documentation as interconnected knowledge makes information accessible to both people and AI systems alike.
đź–¤ Design Systems
Astryx Design System
Astryx is an open-source design system built on React and StyleX, designed for speed, clarity, and creative freedom. With over 160 customizable components, it supports accessibility and dark mode, allowing teams to adapt the system to their workflows. Astryx provides production-ready templates and agent-ready documentation, making it easier to ship high-quality applications. Built by the teams that use it, Astryx continuously evolves to meet the growing quality standards in design and development.
🎧 🎥 📊 Audio / Video / Slides
Everyone's still eating: building Notion's design system
Tamara and Shauna share Notion's year-long journey establishing a design system from scratch, tackling tangled codebases, standardising thousands of icons, and migrating to CSS variables. They reveal how breaking down large-scale work into explicit steps allows teams to strategically deploy AI for mechanical tasks whilst reserving human effort for nuanced decisions, ultimately emphasising that design systems encode shared decisions that preserve a product's soul.
Thanks
That's a wrap for this issue, thanks so much for being here. 🙏 If you'd like to support the newsletter, buying me a coffee is always appreciated. I also write about Design Systems and front-end development over at alwaystwisted.com and if you'd like to say hi, come find me on LinkedIn. 👋