Design systems that survive contact with real developers

Every company above twenty people eventually says 'we need a design system'. Six months later they have 400 Figma components, three of which made it into code. The gap isn't talent. It's treating the system as an art project instead of a product.

Tokens first, components second

Color, type, spacing, radius: named tokens that exist in both Figma and code, generated from one source. When the brand shifts, you change one file. If your 'system' starts with a button library instead of tokens, it's a sticker pack.

Every component earns its place

A component enters the system when it appears in three places, not when someone imagines it might. Speculative components rot. Real ones get maintained because real screens break when they don't.

Documentation people actually read

• Live, rendered examples, not screenshots of Figma
• Do/don't pairs for each component, two lines each
• Copy-paste code for the 90% use case at the top
• A changelog, because a system that never changes is dead

We build design systems alongside the first product that uses them, never in a vacuum. The product keeps the system honest; the system keeps the product consistent.