#design-systems

#design-systems

There have been issues with multi-brand systems not meeting their adopter needs due to the limitations of Figma variables. Product teams would create hacks by copying variable collections into their own files, recreating themes, or even rebuilding token structures from scratch... meaning system updates and governance became broken across adopters. But with extended collections, Design System teams can support multiple brands/ products that require their own custom theme, while keeping variables in sync with the core system.

Media shops organized around a simple machine: More client cash flowing through their pipes means more revenue. Fees. Volume incentives. Data leverage. Margin on margin. Their economics compound. A dollar placed becomes infrastructure for the next dollar. Creative agencies built the opposite. Every idea is a bespoke project. Every campaign starts from scratch. Deliver, invoice, repeat. There's no compounding. No flywheel. Just craft sold by the hour.

To truly understand a digital product as a complete entity, our industry has two powerful but somewhat disconnected frameworks. Brad Frost's Atomic Design gives us the language for the visible architecture of a product, the tangible components we see and interact with. Parallel to this, the academic work of MIT's Daniel Jackson on Conceptual Models gives us a rigorous language for the invisible foundation, the deep logic and rules that govern how a product behaves.

Maybe you've gotten comfortable writing prompts or using simple one-click tools. But as AI interfaces start to take different forms, many of them are still kinda hard to figure out. Navigating them can be overwhelming. It doesn't feel like you're using these products so much as deciphering them. The engineering is powerful, but the flows don't make sense. If you're lost in an AI user flow, blame the writing.

Build consistently. It's the number one UX improvement every developer can make. A design system only works when everyone builds the same page in the same way. When that happens, the benefits are obvious: Developers can work on each other's pages without becoming bottlenecks. The CSS team deals with fewer one-off HTML scenarios. Predictable HTML makes theme swapping and real-time white labelling possible. Yes, it might feel slower at first, but consistency will save you far more headaches later.

That's where Knapsack comes in. It's a collaboration platform specifically designed for enterprises that need to resolve misunderstandings between UI designers, product managers, and engineers. Knapsack creates a unified workspace that connects with tools like Figma and Git, ensuring that any design changes are automatically updated in the code and documentation. This approach makes sure that everything remains up to date, so branding stays consistent across all digital products.

In architecture, the effect of color is rarely neutral. It has the power to calm or energize, to expand or compress space, to unify or divide. Far from solely being a decorative layer, color is a tool that architects, interior designers, and designers use to structure atmosphere and perception. Alongside light, material, and proportion, it is one of the most precise instruments available for guiding spatial experience.

Leadership's demand for immediate, magical AI solutions often overlooks the real, cautious optimism felt by design system practitioners who engage actively with AI in their work.

"People will come, Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom... They'll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past..."

SVGs, being vector graphics, not only reduce storage and memory usage but are also easily animated, scalable, accessible, and SEO-friendly, making them invaluable for modern web design.