Introducing DesignSystems.com

Since Figma’s inception, we’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how to empower people building design systems. Just months after our public launch in 2016, we introduced Figma’s team library feature to help companies share libraries of components across files and teams.

In our complex multi-screen world, designers need tools to scale their process quickly. Tech companies are competing on the strength of their user experience and as their design headcount increases, they face issues of consistency, communication and execution.

As a result, there has been a recent uptick in the interest around design systems — even though they’re not a new concept. We have been hearing a ton of questions from our community: Should design components be tied to code? Do companies need to hire teams to build these systems? How do you get a design system off the ground? Will design systems replace designers?

What do you want to know about design systems?

Today, we’re excited to introduce DesignSystems.com, which will become a hub for the broader design community to learn about and engage in discussion around the craft of building design systems.

As designers, we like to wrap up months upon months of blood, sweat and tears into a shiny Medium post talking about how great our work is. However, this isn’t always helpful for others. By hiding the complexity of our process we discourage our peers when they hit everyday roadblocks instead of inspiring them to power through.

DesignSystems.com will tackle the hard topics head on. We’ll share the messy war stories, hard earned lessons and best practices that everyone can benefit from. We’ll also explore the cultural and economic impact of design systems.

Do you have stories to share about creating a design system? We want to hear about your successes, failures and burning questions. Go to DesignSystems.com and share with us.

Moving the conversation offline

A huge part of implementing a design system is working through the social dynamics of your organization. Some of the most important stories are too sensitive to tell in a public forum. We want to encourage you to dive into these gritty details face to face with other designers in your community.

At Figma, we believe Design Systems represent the future of our industry, so we’re going to be sponsoring a series of Design Systems dinners. We held our first dinner last night in San Francisco with an awesome group of people. We debated late into the night about how design systems change the organizations that create them.

Given that Figma’s user base (and the design community in general) is global in nature, we want to invite designers from around the world to partner with us in future events.

We’ll be choosing select hosts / groups to sponsor for these dinners. If you would like to take part, let us know! Tell us about yourself and your interest in design systems at DesignSystems.com.

We look forward to hearing from you!