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Douglas Dittmer

Saving Time With A Design System

Many companies that are not using a design system have trouble keeping the look of all their communications together. Websites, social media and advertisements often look like they come from completely different companies.


computer-screen-showing a design-system

Therefore, more and more companies have developed graphic guidelines to help them maintain a uniform look through all channels. It has many advantages. The staff does not have to guess or reinvent the wheel, which saves both time and money. It also gives more time to focus on function rather than the look.

Design system When larger companies produce and improve their product, often a web page, they use a design system. It's a library of reusable components, styles and guidelines that make it much easier and faster to implement consistent changes.

These are some of the content in a design system:

  • Common elements such as text fields and menus,

  • Colors and fonts

  • Common buttons

  • In which way things should move during an interaction

  • Flexible grid systems (templates)

  • Cards and its corner radius

  • Location of objects in relation to each other

  • Icons, with explanation of what they mean

  • Grammatical guidance for the content


Design system in a design tool When the designer copies the component (the original) from the design system into the file where a new layout is created, the "copy" turns from component to instance. When you change a component in the design system, all instances on all files are changed.

Advanced Design system Here are five really comprehensive design systems to check out:



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