For an effective design system that stands the test of time, start out by defining your goals for it. And make sure any thing you build for it, reinforces those goals. You also need a certain level of flexibility in your system to keep it creative and to allow for growth.
Define your goals
Design systems usually solve these four basic problems. You can pick one, two, three, or all four as your goals, but be specific on how they would apply to your organization and design process.
- Scale - increase volume and speed of content
- Consistency - improve accuracy accessibility and compliance
- Efficiency - provide greater collaboration between teams
- Quality - ensure brand and messaging governance
Make your system expressive
In the book, Expressive Design Systems, Yesenia Perez-Cruz talks about how to keep from making your design system too generic and keep your design components as stylistically unique as your organization's brand.
To do this successfully, your design system should include a component hierarchy and with thoughtfulness on how your brand gets expressed at each level and focus on the most essential elements of design: typography, color, and space:
- Size - affecting how fast content is consumed
- Scale - the size of elements relative to each other
- Density - should the layout feel airy or compact
- Weight - should the layout feel heavy or light
Along with achieving unity and cohesion, your design system should also embody a harmony by combining all of your design system elements to produce pleasing layouts. "...brand expression is more than your visual language — it's how all of your elements come together to communicate your brand voice." she writes.
For more on using a design system for your campaigns, check out our free guides for both landing pages, and marketing emails.
Blocks Edit provides a flexible approach to building from your design system of components, for teams to build and edit campaigns at scale.
