Design Systems

In actual fact, everything in the context of graphic design is a design system. Branding and Identity is obviously a design system. Book or magazine is also a design system. How you are naming the files is a design system. Your instagram account is a design system. The difference is only the term of media or forms that you used.

Now I will focus on UI/UX guidelines, which are a result of me combining UI assets, screens, layouts and UX specification for developers. The following principles can be applied throughout any project.

Overall I have classified them into two major groups: Visual and Internal structure (backbone). Whereas the visual system is a product as such that users obtain, the internal structure stands for how the product continues to live beyond the project. Both are equally essential, and due to this, interdependent. Regardless of what the scale of the company you are working for is, whatever it is small or big, the system should be an independent object which could be multiplied without an author involved, and grow easily as a crossmedia system.

The design system is affected by a range of factors: identity, usability, coherence, adaptivity to different goals, media, background and environment. To round off/sum up, in terms of the visual effect, the design system should be amazing, balanced and recognisable. And its internal part should be clear and perfectly detailed. Each asset should be specified, each color - meticulously chosen, all the decisions - laid out at length. 

I am in love with the tools that are available now. The design process in our time and age is not just about “saving a file”, but it is about creating an ecosystem and making a wealth of tools collaborate and add to one another.

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