On Theme: Design Systems in Depth

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ToniAnn joins the show to share her experience building a multi-brand design system for BetMGM and Entain's joint venture. This episode is our first project deep dive and it's full of legacy codebases, lessons learned, and big wins. ToniAnn talks to us about dealing with ambiguity, owning your decisions, and keeping leadership on board as you ship a system that changes the way your business works—and your partners businesses, too.

💖 On Theme is a brand new podcast, so if you like what you're hearing, please hit subscribe and sign up at designsystemsontheme.com!

Links & References

• ToniAnn Drenckhahn on LinkedIn
• BetMGM

🎨🎟️ Into Design Systems is May 25-28
Get your ticket at intodesignsystems.com/ontheme

Into Design Systems is back with their annual virtual conference, May 28-30, 2025. Get your ticket now for three days of practical, hands on sessions showing the what, why, and how of design systems. This year, the conference is focused on developer handoff, accessibility, multi brand theming, and governance. You'll get hands on knowledge you can put to use at work immediately, files and resources to take away, and hear from very well known industry speakers. 

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If the way we're building design systems has a fatal flaw, it's "waiting for enough investment to get it right." In this episode, Brian teaches us to not wait for permission and how your product teams' success is your success. Brian reminds us how important it is to remember that we're all on the same team, building the same product—and why internal politics and storytelling matters way more than components. Plus, why design systems are like toilets (not a Dad joke, I promise) and why Brian and I think "measuring the system is hard" is a beautiful thing.

💖 On Theme is a brand new podcast, so if you like what you're hearing, please hit subscribe and sign up at designsystemsontheme.com!

Links & References

• Brian Alfaro on LinkedIn
• The Washington Post Design System
• Brian on bringing value first on the Connecting your Design System to business value panel with Into Design Systems
• Brian on the anatomy of WaPo's component sprints on the Figma blog

🎨🎟️ Into Design Systems is May 25-28
Get your ticket at intodesignsystems.com/ontheme

Into Design Systems is back with their annual virtual conference, May 28-30, 2025. Get your ticket now for three days of practical, hands on sessions showing the what, why, and how of design systems. This year, the conference is focused on developer handoff, accessibility, multi brand theming, and governance. You'll get hands on knowledge you can put to use at work immediately, files and resources to take away, and hear from very well known industry speakers. 

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I'm thrilled to have the one and only Dan Mall on the show, and in this episode, we get deep into all the things you maybe don't want to do if you want your design system to be successful. Dan shares his experiences with failed design systems, one very failed attempt at pitching a system to leadership,  why he thinks design systems should be specific not generic and maybe... not include foundations? Plus, we talk about useless documentation, what's next for systems, and THE spiciest take on tokens.

(Honestly, there are so many 🌶️ Spicy Takes™️ in this episode, we might have to rename the show to Design System Spicy Takes!)

💖 On Theme is a brand new podcast, so if you like what you're hearing, please hit subscribe and sign up at designsystemsontheme.com!

Links & References

• Dan Mall on LinkedIn
• Dan Mall's portfolio
• Design System in 90 Days
• ❗️Free Resource: Design Systems in 90 Days Figjam Canvas
• More of Dan's free resources, talks, writing
• Design that Scales book
• Book a 1:1 with Dan

🎨🎟️ Into Design Systems is May 25-28
Get your ticket at intodesignsystems.com/ontheme

Into Design Systems is back with their annual virtual conference, May 28-30, 2025. Get your ticket now for three days of practical, hands on sessions showing the what, why, and how of design systems. This year, the conference is focused on developer handoff, accessibility, multi brand theming, and governance. You'll get hands on knowledge you can put to use at work immediately, files and resources to take away, and hear from very well known industry speakers. 

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You can't talk about design systems lately without addressing the elephant in the room: layoffs. Noelle walks us through her experience of multiple layoffs in one year, why 2023 was so different than 2020, and how the success criteria of design systems correlated with team layoffs. We discuss the bogeyman of "getting zero results from your design system" and what Noelle was hearing from business leadership about that, and how storytelling might matter more than metrics. Plus, a very spicy take on ~the rebrand~, and why at least one company was hiring for someone to delete  their design system 😱

Warning: F-word/language.

💖 On Theme is a brand new podcast, so if you like what you're hearing, please hit subscribe and sign up at designsystemsontheme.com!

Links & References

• Noelle Lansford on LinkedIn
• Hire Noelle on your system: NoelleLansford.com
• Noelle's semi-viral blog post, The State of Design Systems
• layoffs.fyi
• Sam Anderson's Design Systems are Infrastructure
• eBay Design Playbook

🎨🎟️ Into Design Systems is May 25-28
Get your ticket at intodesignsystems.com/ontheme

Into Design Systems is back with their annual virtual conference, May 28-30, 2025. Get your ticket now for three days of practical, hands on sessions showing the what, why, and how of design systems. This year, the conference is focused on developer handoff, accessibility, multi brand theming, and governance. You'll get hands on knowledge you can put to use at work immediately, files and resources to take away, and hear from very well known industry speakers. 

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Jina Anne gives us a history of the journey from early style guides to widespread industry adoption of design systems, and the challenges and successes. We explore how tokens came to be, how it feels when the engineering team just starts using your work before it's ready, the separation of HTML/CSS/JS concerns, and how ClarityConf got started. Plus, the origin of the phrase "design systems" (maybe?), and  what the NASA Graphic Standards Manual has to do with ClarityConf.

💖 On Theme is a brand new podcast, so if you like what you're hearing, please hit subscribe and sign up at designsystemsontheme.com!

Links & References

• Jina Anne
• ClarityConf
• The Design Systems Slack
• Quark
• Salesforce Theo for design tokens
• Old-school CSS tools Sass, Less, and Stylus
• CSS Custom Properties (variables)
• Adam Morris and Tachyons
• Salesforce Lightning Design System
• Nicole Sullivan and Mark Otto at The Mixin meetup
• Richard Danne, Designing for Earthlings and Astronauts at ClarityConf 2016
• The original 1976 NASA Graphic Standards Manual
• Gartner Hype Cycle for UX 2024
• Penpot (Figma alt)
• Josh Silverman at CCA
• Ben Callahan's The Question

🎨🎟️ Into Design Systems is May 25-28
Get your ticket at intodesignsystems.com/ontheme

Into Design Systems is back with their annual virtual conference, May 28-30, 2025. Get your ticket now for three days of practical, hands on sessions showing the what, why, and how of design systems. This year, the conference is focused on developer handoff, accessibility, multi brand theming, and governance. You'll get hands on knowledge you can put to use at work immediately, files and resources to take away, and hear from very well known industry speakers. 

📲 Text the show your thoughts!

Brad Frost takes us back in time to the early days of design systems, and walks us through some of the significant moments of evolution from style guides to modern design systems. We dig in to the multiple proto-Storybook-esque projects, the original problem of sharing UI patterns, what React did, and Brad's personal moment of "oh, it's called design systems now." Plus, a bonus podcast throwback from the Style Guides Podcast feat. Dave Rupert and some early proto-Storybook madness.

💖 On Theme is a brand new podcast, so if you like what you're hearing, please hit subscribe and sign up at designsystemsontheme.com!

Links & References

• Brad Frost
• Brad's new tokens course, Subatomic
• patternlab.io
• How Pattern Lab worked
• This is Responsive
• styleguides.io
• Anna Debenham
• Nicole Sullivan OOCSS
• Jonathan Snook SMACSS Book
• Natalie Downe "Practical Maintainable CSS"
• Ethan Marcotte's original Responsive Design article in A List Apart
• The Story of React
• THAT React CSS in JS slide
• Style Guides podcast with Dave Rupert
• RetailMeNot's Roux project

 
🎨🎟️ Into Design Systems is May 25-28
Get your ticket at intodesignsystems.com/ontheme

Into Design Systems is back with their annual virtual conference, May 28-30, 2025. Get your ticket now for three days of practical, hands on sessions showing the what, why, and how of design systems. This year, the conference is focused on developer handoff, accessibility, multi brand theming, and governance. You'll get hands on knowledge you can put to use at work immediately, files and resources to take away, and hear from very well known industry speakers. 

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Elyse shares five predictions for design systems in 2025 and beyond in the second pre-season minisode. Text the show to share your thoughts and predictions and maybe even be featured in a future minisode!

Early Bird tickets are available until January 15th for Into Design System's excellent annual virtual conference, featuring Nathan Curtis, Romina Kavcic, Cintia Romero, and more. Get your tickets now before prices go up at intodesignsystems.com/ontheme

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Are design systems in the trough of disillusionment? Elyse explores the past decade of design systems and what we're missing in this pre-season one minisode. 

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