Hi Friends! I’m excited to share this week’s “Designing Near Future” Newsletter with you. But before that, if this email landed in your promotions folder, you know what to do.

Here’s the breakdown of what’s in store today

⭐ 1 Shift: Why is Every Company Adopting Design Systems?

⚡ 1 Tip: Design is a journey, not a destination

💊 3 Resources: Creative resources for taking your work to the next level

⭐ Shift

Why is Every Company Adopting Design Systems?

Design systems are becoming increasingly popular. If you have ever been on medium, every third article is about design systems. I’m kidding, but it’s very likely that design systems are going mainstream beyond the confines of figma and product designers and becoming an industry wide buzz word.

Let’s dive in.

The Origins

Before digital, there were print design guidelines. In the 1960s, corporate identity manuals for companies like NASA or the New York Transit Authority set detailed standards for how their branding should be used in various media.

As digital interfaces began to take off in the 80s, companies started to see the need for consistent design practices. Apple's Human Interface Guidelines from 1987 can be seen as one of the early versions of a digital design system.

Popularization

Then came the tech giants and the first few design systems were popularized.

1. Microsoft’s Windows: Microsoft introduced guidelines for Windows applications to ensure consistency in the user experience.

2. Google’s Material Design (2014): Perhaps one of the most recognizable moments in design system history. Google's Material Design introduced a unified system for its mobile apps and played a huge role in popularizing the idea of design systems. It wasn’t just a style guide, but a complete set of guidelines that included motion, interaction, and sound.

3. Airbnb’s Design Language System (2017): Airbnb's Design Language System was another pivotal moment. This system was about more than just design; it focused on cross-disciplinary collaboration, emphasizing the importance of designers working closely with engineers. PS. their blogs are really fun.

Modern Era: Design Systems for All

With the advent of tools like Figma, Sketch, and Adobe XD, creating and maintaining a design system became more accessible for even smaller teams. I mean, REI has a system called CEDAR, Audi has a UI kit and Instacart has Snacks (Cute name). The idea that once seemed reserved for tech giants is now being adopted by startups, non-profits, and SMEs. Heck, even I am using one for a website I’m building for my community. This democratization aligns with a broader cultural trend where knowledge and tools are becoming more accessible and easier to use.

There are tons of reports around product design systems maturity out there from companies like Invision, Sparkbox, Forrester, etc. They are fun reads and will confirm that adoption is on the rise.

The growth is sort of a no-brainer as the fascination with design systems comes from the massive benefits they offer:

• Consistency: They enable design consistency across products, making for a unified brand image.

• Scalability: According to a survey by InVision, 69% of design teams that implemented a design system saw a noticeable increase in the speed of design operations.

• Efficiency: Airbnb, after implementing its design system, reduced the production time by nearly 60%. Btw their blogs are some of the most one funs out there.

• Familiarity for Users: Users start to find familiarity in their digital experiences. This makes navigating new apps easier, enhancing the user experience.

Criticism

I found some interesting articles that talk about the limitations of a design system. This one argues that systems reduce design to a mere checkbox, consume excessive time, and often fail in practice. By prioritizing uniformity and speed, these systems can stifle creativity and miss essential context. This one from Shopify also talks about monotony and imprisonment for designers and developers.

I just wanted to give you all the sauce here really, just so you know it’s not a universal one size fits all solution to every companies design workflow.

That being said, the rise of content, education and resources around design systems is a clear signal something is up.

So what’s the shift?

Design Systems have graduated from tech-centric practice to a widespread, cross-industry standard

The way I see it, design systems have moved from being a trend to an accepted norm, so much so that jobs specific to design systems are now available. I always like searching for keywords on google trends and one search for “How to make a design system” will show you a noticeable spike in the last 2 years confirming that more and more people are looking to build their own design systems.

Here’s why I think this is happening -

1. Increasing Figma community. (4M+ Users in 2023) And the fact that a large part of it is free. According to all the reports I read while researching, Figma is the preferred choice for documenting design systems.

2. FOMO. Big tech, small tech, everyone has a growing system with a cute name.

3. Global and hybrid teams means a system was almost a necessity during COVID for alignment. It makes everyone’s life easy. I think this is the biggest reason for most teams.

4. Google's approach encouraged other companies to think about design systems as something that can be shared and adopted broadly (rather than just internally). IBM’s Carbon and Shopify’s Polaris followed a similar path.

5. Product design is a popular field and one of the highest paid tech jobs today. (Avg salary in the US is around 95k)

Exciting opportunities for building in this space:

1. Content Strategy: Most design systems aren’t mature enough to loop in different parts of a companies business than just web and app assets. But for a larger impact look towards incorporating content design principles, ideas, collaborator personalities, message, tone, music, etc. into your design systems. In today’s world, content is king and you want every piece you put out there to rep your brand and speak the same language.

2. Design System for Physical Products: Why not build a library of repeated geometric details to carry across products for consistency and honoring a design language. Less time fussing over corner radius or CMF choices, more time creating meaningful interactions. I read on linkedin, (So it could be very well untrue but) Teenage Engineering apparently does this - which allows them to keep a consistent look across products.

Hey real quick, I put a lot of effort into writing only the best for my subscribers. Share this with a friend and join 1000+ creatives Designing the Near Future, Here is a link.

⚡ Tip

“Design is a journey, not a destination”

This quote by Massimo Vignelli struck a chord with me and I want to share a couple of actionable tips for the designer in you.

Vignelli believed that design is never finished. There is always room for improvement, and designers should always be looking for ways to make their work better - even after your work is finished - (and wrapped into a product or a project).

There are 2 key takeaways from Vignelli’s writing that I use in my process:

Design is a process of discovery

As we design, we learn more about the problem we are trying to solve and the people we are trying to solve it for. This learning process should inform our design decisions and help us to create better products and services. Your briefs are only 20% baked in. Only when you are deep into solving the problem 80% of the challenge will get revealed to you. I don’t see design as a simple linear research - ideate - develop process but more like an intertwined bundle of different processes with research and discovery involved at every step.

Design is a journey of iteration

Designers should not be afraid to experiment and make changes to their designs. The best designs are really the result of a lot of iteration and refinement. The truth is, most products are not perfect. (I know wtf designers 😆). You will probably never be able to design something that works for 100% of the people, with 100% success. I usually need to generate a bunch of ideas before I am able to generate a winning idea. And most often than not I continue generating new ideas even when the project finishes.

💊 Resources

3 links to boost your creativity.

• IconBuddy 180k + open source icons for apps, decks, etc. Just found out about these! Will definitely be using it

• ColorHub I like this color palette generator because it provides both the mood and color names based on it’s attribute. Great to name product skews and to sound smart!

• This talk by Mike Monteiro is a classic. I’m sharing it incase you haven’t checked out one of the most influential talks about designers and money.