Design Systems Podcast

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.Adam and Chris discuss the power of design systems and their ability to break down barriers between designers and developers.View the transcript of this episode here.Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘Introducing Knapsack V4: A Powerful Update for a Future-Ready Experience,’ July 26th at 1 pm (ET) and 10 am (PT).GuestAdam Sedwick is a senior product manager with a 10 year background in design and development focused on modular design and design systems.His background provides the insight and ability to help teams work better together to close the gap between static designs and production experiences.At Discovery Education he leads the Design Systems team, working with individual product teams to provide resilient and reusable solutions at scale.Adam currently resides in Tennessee with his wife and son. When not at the computer he enjoys creative outlets in the physical space including painting, amateur woodworking, and building with LEGO.HostChris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.Richard and Chris discuss iterative work and how integral thinking by doing is when progressing work forward. View the transcript of this episode here.Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘AI in Design Systems’ on June 28th, 1 pm (ET) and 10 am (PT).GuestProfessionally, I express myself through creating new products and businesses, both for myself and others. My first business was designing and printing t-shirts in my parent's garage at 14-yrs old. Since then I’ve been fortunate enough to play either a founding or leadership role in several companies. To share what I've learned, I speak at conferences, run workshops, write articles, books and am a regular guest on industry podcasts.HostChris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.Sheryl and Chris discuss the complexities of the design system space as it involves human behaviours. View the transcript of this episode here.Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘AI in Design Systems’ on June 28th, 1 pm (ET) and 10 am (PT).GuestSheryl Cababa is the author of Closing the Loop: Systems Thinking for Designers. She's a design researcher and strategist and is the Chief Strategy Officer at Substantial, an education-focused research, insights, and development studio based in Seattle. Her practice is focused on systems thinking and equity-centered design, and she's worked with a diverse base of clients including the Gates Foundation, Microsoft, IKEA, and Khan Academy. Her focus is on using design to help clients reimagine education.  She also teaches at the University of Washington's Human-Centered Design and Engineering program, helping to introduce systems thinking to the next generation of designers. HostChris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.Danielle and Chris discuss the impact designing at scale will have on ROI.View the transcript of this episode here.Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘AI in Design Systems’ on June 28th, 1 pm (ET) and 10 am (PT).GuestDanielle MacDonald is a design leader and self-proclaimed design systems geek, with over 15 years of experience in managing digital design from concept to launch. She has a focus on creating digital experiences that strive to meet user needs. Danielle knows how to work within constraints to solve an experience challenge and how to push beyond them. Danielle currently resides in New England with her husband and three daughters. When she isn’t thinking about digital experiences you can find her at a hockey rink, soccer field, lacrosse field or enjoying the beach.HostChris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.Chris Deluca and Chris discuss  the significance of prioritizing people in the process of developing design systems. They explore a central question that consistently arises: Whose lives are you striving to enrich and simplify?View the transcript of this episode here.GuestsChris DeLuca is a senior front end web developer from New Jersey with thirteen years of experience serving large organizations with complex needs, such as The Daily Beast, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and now Lullabot. He specializes in design systems and system architecture, focusing on producing maintainable solutions to difficult problems. He is currently nomadic. HostChris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.Kendall and Chris discuss how design systems represent the strategic platform for how a company creates product. View the transcript of this episode here.Register for our upcoming ‘Design Systems Buying Guide’ webinar on May 24th, 2 pm (EST), hosted by Chris Strahl and Dan Mall. GuestKendall Totten began as a graphic designer & frontend web dev and found Drupal early in her career. She contributed to the frontend for sites such as dallascowboys.com, weather.com & redhat.com. At Red Hat, she helped to champion the OS design system & web components project PatternFly Elements. She is now the Engineering Manager at Pinata and lives in Raleigh, NC.HostChris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.A round table discussion hosted by Chris and Andrew from Knapsack with the Meta Blueprint team, part two. View the transcript of this episode here.GuestsChristopher Clare - Director of Product DesignChris Clare is the Head of Foundation Design for FB App responsible for unifying the app through the Blueprint Design System, driving efficiency for the rest of the design org and giving capacity back to our teams to focus on innovation. Prior to this role, he was the Head of Design for the Communities Product Group at Meta. His team was responsible for helping people build meaningful communities through products like Groups, Events, Profile and Messenger. After he joined the company 7.5 years ago to help rethink the strategy and experience for the Groups Product, it quickly became the top priority for the company who changed their mission to be community driven. In the previous 15 years before Meta, Chris has led Design System and Product teams as multiple Companies, including his time as Creative Director at Motorola (Google) and head of Skype Android and Desktop at Microsoft.Mitch Johnson - Director, Product DesignMitch Johnson leads the Blueprint Design System Team for Facebook responsible for building the underlying Design System and infrastructure to enable teams design efficiently on a unified infrastructure, consistently across surfaces, accessible for all users, and to a high bar of people-first quality.Elizabeth Rifer - Director, Content Design DirectorElizabeth is responsible for developing Facebook’s content architecture. She spent years building Facebook Marketplace and believes in strengthening communities through local commerce. Her mission is to humanize technology so everyone (including her mother) can enjoy it. Dan Lebowitz - Director, Product DesignDan Lebowitz is a Product Design Director at Meta leading design system architecture across Facebook and partnering across the company on systems initiatives. Since 2015, Dan has helped lead the design of Meta’s web platform, numerous design systems, and 0-1 products.Adelle Charles - Product Design ManagerAdelle Charles leads the Design Excellence team for Facebook responsible for our broader Excellence programs, design craft, design tooling and partnering on Blueprint to deliver on design tool efficiency and quality across Facebook. Andrew Rohman - VP Sales & CS at KnapsackAndrew leads Knapsack’s customer-facing teams and has experience with dozens of large enterprise Design System implementations. Andrew provides a practical approach to goal setting and fostering both organizational and cultural change when adopting a design system.HostChris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.A round table discussion hosted by Chris and Andrew from Knapsack with the Meta Blueprint team (part one). View the transcript of this episode here.GuestsChristopher Clare - Director of Product DesignChris Clare is the Head of Foundation Design for FB App responsible for unifying the app through the Blueprint Design System, driving efficiency for the rest of the design org and giving capacity back to our teams to focus on innovation. Prior to this role, he was the Head of Design for the Communities Product Group at Meta. His team was responsible for helping people build meaningful communities through products like Groups, Events, Profile and Messenger. After he joined the company 7.5 years ago to help rethink the strategy and experience for the Groups Product, it quickly became the top priority for the company who changed their mission to be community driven. In the previous 15 years before Meta, Chris has led Design System and Product teams as multiple Companies, including his time as Creative Director at Motorola (Google) and head of Skype Android and Desktop at Microsoft.Mitch Johnson - Director, Product DesignMitch Johnson leads the Blueprint Design System Team for Facebook responsible for building the underlying Design System and infrastructure to enable teams design efficiently on a unified infrastructure, consistently across surfaces, accessible for all users, and to a high bar of people-first quality.Elizabeth Rifer - Director, Content Design DirectorElizabeth is responsible for developing Facebook’s content architecture. She spent years building Facebook Marketplace and believes in strengthening communities through local commerce. Her mission is to humanize technology so everyone (including her mother) can enjoy it. Dan Lebowitz - Director, Product DesignDan Lebowitz is a Product Design Director at Meta leading design system architecture across Facebook and partnering across the company on systems initiatives. Since 2015, Dan has helped lead the design of Meta’s web platform, numerous design systems, and 0-1 products.Adelle Charles - Product Design ManagerAdelle Charles leads the Design Excellence team for Facebook responsible for our broader Excellence programs, design craft, design tooling and partnering on Blueprint to deliver on design tool efficiency and quality across Facebook. Andrew Rohman - VP Sales & CS at KnapsackAndrew leads Knapsack’s customer-facing teams and has experience with dozens of large enterprise Design System implementations. Andrew provides a practical approach to goal setting and fostering both organizational and cultural change when adopting a design system.HostChris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.Kaelig, Darren, and Chris talk tokens and code: “Using a whole different type of brain.” View the transcript of this episode here. Want to hear more? Register for Knapsack’s upcoming talking tokens webinar here. GuestsKaelig Deloumeau-Prigent, Principal Software Engineer at NetlifyFounder of the Design Tokens W3C Community Group, providing open standards for products and design tools to share design system foundations at scale.Darren Simons, Senior Product Designer, Design Systems at MulesoftDigital Product Designer who is able to untangle complicated requirements, build design systems from the ground up, and incorporate them into the design workflow. I bring design and technology together to craft elegant user interfaces with an emphasis on the end-user experience.HostChris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.Amber, Taylor, and Chris talk tokens; the pros and cons.View the transcript of this episode here.GuestsAmber Stickel, Principal Design Technologist at IntuitFront-end designer and developer with a passion for creating modular, reusable, and flexible interfaces and systems. With multidisciplinary knowledge and tools in hand, I’m hoping to improve the web one experience at a time.Taylor Cashdan, Design Systems Lead at Mayo ClinicMultidisciplinary creative and community builder that's passionate about people, design, and all the intersections in between. I bring to the table a burning desire to collaborate with teams tasked with creating exceptional work for people who give a shit.HostChris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.