Design Systems Podcast 124. From Ideas to Impact: Chris Strahl and Evan Lovely on Five Years of Design Systems Innovation
Dec 10, 2024
Evan Lovely, co-founder of Knapsack, returns to celebrate five years of innovation in design systems with Chris Strahl. They reflect on their journey from agency work to building a SaaS platform, sharing personal anecdotes and lessons learned. The importance of composability and constraints in design is highlighted, with insights on how AI is transforming the industry. They discuss recent shifts in design tools, the balance between flexibility and brand integrity, and the evolving role of community and empathy in the design ecosystem.
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Early Use of JSON Schema
- Chris Strahl shared how early use of JSON schema to define components was formative for their design system approach.
- This approach connected design system components with data structures and CMS integration for seamless updates.
Constraints Enable Creativity
- Design systems thrive on constraints that foster creativity within limits.
- Constraining elements like colors and spacing tokens ensures consistency "for free" across products.
Billion Combinations in Constraints
- Design systems offer billions of possible component variations within strict constraints.
- Too many options like unlimited colors are unrealistic compared to the power of well-defined constraints.