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In this episode of The Design Systems Podcast, Chris Strahl welcomes Guy Segal, the director of digital ecosystem and design systems at Thomson Reuters. Guy shares his experience of building a design system that serves over 150+ brands and the importance of having a point of view when you are working to bring both quality and consistency to a large portfolio of products. From design system missionaries to trojan horses to carrots and sticks, Guy and Chris talk about how to gain the buy-in you need to build a design system product teams will want to use.

View the transcript of this episode.

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Guest

Guy Segal is a design leader with over 25 years of experience in the tech industry, specializing in UX, product design, and DesignOps. Leveraging his passion for design leadership and people management, he has a proven track record of fostering innovation and collaboration within design teams, establishing and nurturing design practices, and leading teams to success. Guy's expertise extends to various domains, including product, UX, and service design, as well as a strong background in web and UI development. In recent years, he has been focusing extensively on design systems, establishing and growing teams around the practice, and launching systems that optimize efficiency and enhance user experiences. Beyond his professional endeavors, Guy is an avid enthusiast of board games, food, and movies, welcoming conversations on diverse topics that extend beyond the realm of design.

Guy’s Design Downtime podcast: http://designdowntime.com/

Host
Chris 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.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.

It’s all just opinions, man! In this episode of the Design Systems Podcast, Mark Shuster talks about the shift away from enforcing strict guidelines through design systems towards enabling good design and production practices in a more transparent and collaborative way.  Chris and Mark discuss different sources of truth within a design system, flexibility and iteration, and why composability is so important to the future of the product engineering process. 

View the transcript of this episode.

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Guest
Mark Shuster is an Engineering Manager at Dropbox, leading a team responsible for building DIG, Dropbox’s design system. With previous design systems experience at Twitch and BuzzFeed, Mark has a rich background spanning UX design and front-end development. He holds a Master’s degree in Human-Computer Interaction from Carnegie Mellon University and is based in the Bay Area.

Host
Chris 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.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.

We sit down with Brad Frost, a leading voice in design systems. Together, we explore the critical intersection between adaptable design systems and brand identities, unveiling the secrets to creating components that not only function seamlessly across platforms but also resonate with diverse brand aesthetics. Listen in as we discuss the layers of a successful design system, from global frameworks to the 'recipes' that define specific use cases, and highlight the importance of industry-wide component standardization. This thought-provoking conversation with Brad Frost promises to elevate your approach to design systems.

View the transcript of this episode.

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Guest
Brad Frost is a design system consultant, front-end developer, speaker, writer, musician, and artist located in beautiful Pittsburgh, PA. As a principal and design system consultant at Big Medium, he helps teams establish and evolve design systems, establish more collaborative workflows, and create better software together.. He is the author of the book Atomic Design, which introduces a methodology to create and maintain effective design systems. He co-hosted the Style Guides Podcast and has helped create several tools and resources for web designers, including Pattern Lab, Styleguides.io, Style Guide Guide, This Is Responsive, Death to Bullshit, and more.

Host
Chris 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.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.

Varun Vachar and Chris discuss the “design graph,” creating choice in governance models, building a foundation of tools when setting up new systems, and using computational design and machine learning with design systems. Varun was at Rangle when this episode was recorded but is now at Chromatic.

Guest:

Varun Vachar is a Developer Experience Engineer at Chromatic, formerly Director of Technology at Rangle, and generative art enthusiast. You can find Varun at varun.ca, on Twitter as @winkerVSbecks and on LinkedIn.

Host:

Chris 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.

Sponsor:

Knapsack — The design system platform for ambitious product teams. Learn more at knapsack.cloud about getting Knapsack for your team.

Links:

View the transcript for this episode.

Read more about the concept of The Design Graph by Brent Jackson.

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Adam Argyle and Chris venture into “spicy opinion” territory and discuss when design systems are freeing vs. constraining, creating appropriate “offramps” for venturing outside of your design system, why designers ought to be proposing changes to code (aka making pull requests!), and decentralizing the human side of design systems to break down silos and enable innovation and enhancements to spread freely throughout your product teams.

Guest:

Adam Argyle is a Chrome CSS Developer Advocate at Google, creator of VisBug, co-host of The CSS Podcast, developer, former designer, and RPG enthusiast. You can find Adam at nerdy.dev, on Twitter as @argyleink, and on LinkedIn.

Host:

Chris 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.

Sponsor:

Knapsack — The design system platform for ambitious product teams. Learn more at knapsack.cloud about getting Knapsack for your team.

Links:

View the transcript for this episode.

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.

Stephen Gates (currently at InVision; formerly at Citi and Starwood) and Chris discuss advice for leaders needing to drive adoption and success of their design systems, how to assess and foster trust between design system creators and consumers, treating design systems as infrastructure, and the Amazing Design People List to help designers find work during COVID-19.

Guest:

Stephen Gates is Head Design Evangelist at InVision, host of The Crazy One podcast, designer, and international keynote speaker. You can find Stephen on Twitter or Instagram as @sdgates and LinkedIn.

Host:

Chris 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 LinkedIn.

Sponsor:

Knapsack — The design system platform for ambitious product teams. Learn more at knapsack.cloud about getting Knapsack for your team.

Links:

View the transcript for this episode.

Check out the Amazing Design People List to discover amazing designers worldwide on this community-led talent base during COVID-19.

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.

Mina Markham (currently at Slack, formerly at Hillary For America and IBM) and Chris discuss getting executive buy-in, how to create space to continue advancing your design system, going beyond a shared language by building a shared culture, the story behind the Pantsuit Design System, and Beyoncé, of course.

 Guest:

Mina Markham is Staff Engineer at Slack, design systems advocate, and international speaker. You can find Mina at mina.codes, on Twitter as @MinaMarkham, and on LinkedIn.

Host:

Chris 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 LinkedIn.

Sponsor:

Knapsack — the design system platform for ambitious product teams. Learn more at knapsack.cloud about getting Knapsack for your team.

Links:

View the transcript for this episode.

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.

Chris and Micah discuss creating a singular design system that scales to support a massive app ecosystem, using tokens to align design across disparate products, and transitioning from individual teams working on many products to one company working on a library of products.

Guest:

Micah Godbolt is a design systems advocate, speaker, trainer, and writer. Micah is a software engineer for Fluent UI at Microsoft and author of Frontend Architecture for Design Systems published by O’Reilly Media. You can find Micah at micahgodbolt.com, on Twitter as @micahgodbolt, and on LinkedIn.

Host:

Chris 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 LinkedIn.

Sponsor:

Knapsack — The design system platform for ambitious product teams. Learn more at knapsack.cloud about getting Knapsack for your team.

Links:

View the transcript for this episode.

LinkedIn post via Jason Blackheart showing the time savings of just one component from Microsoft’s Coherence Design System.

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Chris and Ethan discuss the parallels between design systems and responsive web design in terms of the impact on how teams design/develop digital products, creating a shared language and research as a means to build successful design systems, and where design systems are headed in the years to come.

Guest:

Ethan Marcotte is an independent web designer, writer, and speaker, and the fellow who started that “responsive web design” thing. You can find Ethan at ethanmarcotte.com, on Twitter as @beep and as @RWD, and on LinkedIn.

Host:

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Sponsor:

Knapsack — The design system platform for ambitious product teams. Learn more at knapsack.cloud about getting Knapsack for your team.

Links:

View the transcript for this episode.

The tweet Ethan mentioned from @kimgoodwin: “I think the #1 architectural mistake I see on software teams is failure to articulate the conceptual data model before building things. What are the meaningful objects, how do they relate, and what can users do with them? It’s a small investment for huge dividends.”

The book Chris mentioned: “Design Systems” by Alla Kholmatova

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Chris talks with Brad Frost and Evan Lovely about why code is the real source of truth, how to bring designers and developers together around the code, and the opportunity design systems provide for designers to focus on creative contribution rather than producing more comps.

Guests:

Brad Frost is a web designer, speaker, writer, consultant, and musician in beautiful Pittsburgh, PA. Author of Atomic Design. You can find Brad on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Evan Lovely is co-founder and CTO of Knapsack, crafter of design systems, outdoorsman, and all-round nice guy. You can find Evan on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Host:

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Sponsor:

Knapsack — The design system platform for ambitious product teams. Learn more at knapsack.cloud about getting Knapsack for your team.

Links:

View the transcript for this episode.

Check out Brad’s book, Atomic Design, which introduces a methodology for thinking of our UIs as thoughtful hierarchies, discusses the qualities of effective pattern libraries, and showcases techniques to transform your team's design and development workflow.

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.

Chris and Jeremy Keith discuss imbuing teams with a shared sense of ownership of their design system, creating design systems able to address unforeseen scenarios, design ops as an essential part of an effective design system, and more.

Guest:

Jeremy Keith is an Irish web developer working with @Clearleft, playing music with @SalterCane, creator of @Huffduffer. You can find Jeremy on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Host:

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Links:

Episode transcript → Google Drive

Progressing The Web → Jeremy Keith via Medium

Progressive Enhancement: What It Is, And How To Use It? → Sam Dwyer via Smashing Magazine

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Chris and Charles Hall talk about the impact of accessibility, how to build more accessible products, and the role design systems play in creating accessible outcomes.

Guest:

Charles Hall is a Senior UX Architect at MRM and an Invited Expert of the W3C Accessibility Guidelines Working Group. You can find Charles on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Host:

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Links:

View the full transcript here

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.

Chris talks with Salem about what a front-end architect actually does, they breakdown of web components (what they are and who uses them), cover the tools Pega systems use and how their team works, and much more.

Download the episode transcript: http://files.basalt.io.s3.amazonaws.com/podcast_transcripts/008-Design-Systems-Podcast-Transcript.pdf 

Salem Ghoweri
Lead Front-End Architect for PegaSystem's Bold Design System
Salem is the lead front-end architect for the digital team at Pegasystems and the creator of the open-source Bolt Design System. He’s also worked on frontend architectural projects for Wayfair, Akamai, Panera, and Lysol, and is a core maintainer of the popular prototyping tool, Pattern Lab.

Find Salem on Twitter or LinkedIn.

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Informatica's design and AI director, Ranjeet Tayi doing us on the Design Systems Podcast to discuss AI's transformative impact on design systems, elucidating the shift from static products to dynamic, personalized AI-driven experiences. Chris and Ranjeet navigate through the intricacies of AI's influence on crafting hyper-personalized interfaces, the burgeoning role of predictive analytics in UIs, and the ascendance of voice and text as forefronts of design. The discussion extends to the integration of AI in chatbots, the pivotal role of open-source tools, and the breakthroughs in creativity AI has facilitated in areas like movie and music production. Furthermore, we probe into the indispensable role of design systems in fostering cohesive components, enhancing personalized branding, and amplifying user engagement through continuous learning. Our conversation culminates by highlighting the convergence of AI and design, underlining the significance of structured data, ethical considerations, and AI's capability to redefine the software development lifecycle.

View the transcript of this episode.

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Guest
Ranjeet Tayi, Director of AI Experience at Informatica, brings 18+ years of UX and AI leadership, advocating GOOD DATA & GOOD DESIGN. Worked at SumTotal, PURE IT Usability Research, and co-founding Mind Visions, he holds 5 patents and is an extraordinary recipient, with a background in Philosophy in Mass Communication & Design Management. Recognized as a speaker, author, and design awards judge, Ranjeet actively serves on non-profit boards & design councils.

Host
Chris 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.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.

Chris talks to the President and CEO of the Technology Association of Oregon (TAO), Skip Newberry. While Skip may not work in the DS community day-to-day, he has a unique view on design and development from working with so many Oregon tech companies. The two talk about focusing on the use of design when helping to reach communities outside of the standard spectrum. Additionally, they discuss the idea of how ubiquity matters, to reach the most people, leveraging technology as much as possible to augment in-person connectivity, how Oregon tech companies are going through digital transformations and much more.

Download episode transcript:
http://files.basalt.io.s3.amazonaws.com/podcast_transcripts/007-Design-Systems-Podcast-Transcript.pdf


Skip Newberry
President and CEO, Technology Association of Oregon
Skip is a frequent speaker on technology trends and topics, economic development, public-private partnerships, and civic innovation. Before joining the TAO, Skip served as an economic development policy advisor to Portland Mayor Sam Adams, where he helped create Portland’s first comprehensive economic development strategy in 16 years, recognizing software as a key industry cluster. While at the City of Portland, Skip’s projects included the adoption of the nation’s first open-source software procurement policy at the municipal level, an award-winning regional open data initiative and the development of resources to support entrepreneurship, like the Portland Seed Fund. Previously, Skip was a corporate and IP attorney and entrepreneur. Skip is Chairman Emeritus of the Board of Directors of TECNA, Technology Councils of North America, which is a global network of technology and entrepreneurship associations, and he serves on the community advisory board for Wells Fargo and several community-based organizations in the Portland area. Skip is also a 2012 recipient of the Portland Business Journal’s 40 Under 40 award. When he's not working on behalf of the region's tech industry, Skip enjoys exploring the Pacific Northwest with his family.

You can find Skip on LinkedIn.

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Chris chats with Marco Suárez about his design experiences in the early days, before the term 'design systems' was official. The two walk through how to drive adoption of a design system within an organization, using branding and design in a physical space as well as digital, Marco's specific design experience and working with companies like MailChimp and Etsy on design systems, and more.

Download the episode transcript: https://files.basalt.io.s3.amazonaws.com/podcast_transcripts/006-Design-Systems-Podcast-Transcript.pdf

Marco Suárez
Product Designer, Design System Consultant, Co-Owner of Methodical Coffee
Marco Suárez has built design systems at InVision and Etsy. Now he guides companies through the process of designing and adopting their own design systems. He's also one of the owners of Methodical Coffee, a cafe and roasting company in Greenville, SC.

You can find Marco on Twitter.

Other Show Notes
In this episode, Chris and Marco discuss coffee, because sometimes it's too early in the morning for beer.

Methodical Coffee is located in Greenville, South Carolina, but you can order their beans online for an at-home experience. They serve single-origin coffees, pour overs, siphons, and cold brew.

https://methodicalcoffee.com/

Follow @Methodical_SC on Twitter.

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Chris talks with Tatiana Mac about ensuring design systems, specifically components, are accessible. The two discuss accessibility testing tools, being sure to be inclusive in forms, considering inclusion and the "why" when asking for certain data, and more inclusion topics.

Download the episode transcript:
https://files.basalt.io.s3.amazonaws.com/podcast_transcripts/005-Design-Systems-Podcast-Transcript.pdf


Tatiana Mac
Independent American designer
Tatiana Mac (she/they) is an independent American designer who works directly with organizations to build clear and coherent products and design systems.

She believes the trifecta of accessibility, performance, and inclusion can work symbiotically to improve our social landscape digitally and physically. When ethically-minded, she thinks technologists can dismantle exclusionary systems in favor of community-focused, inclusive ones.

Tatiana is an open-source maintainer, currently focused on building a dictionary called Self-Defined. Self-Defined seeks to provide more inclusive, holistic, and fluid definitions to reflect the diverse perspectives of the modern world. The dictionary will eventually include integrated bots and an API to embed into enterprise software.

Never totally pleased with design tools, she designs in browser to bring performant, semantic, and accessible visual narratives into the web. Her current obsessions are optimizing variable fonts, converting raster images into SVGs, and recreating modernist paintings in CSS grid. When she can successfully :q vim, she finds new countries to explore (36 and counting) and designs tech merch at StyleDotCSS.

You can find Tatiana on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Other Show Notes
Want to learn more about Tatiana and her work? Here are some great reference links.

• YouTube Playlist / Recorded Talks
• Website
• Twitter
• CodePen
• GitHub

Other resources discussed:

• Axe-Core
• Lighthouse

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Dan Mall calls in from the East coast to chat with Chris about design systems and their role in enterprise organizations. How does this affect the teams that work on them? The guys also discuss what digital products actually are in relation to design systems. How to create a "one ring to rule them all" type of system and does that even exits? They continue to dive into agile, designers' roles, how teams are finding they're wasting time, and much more.

Dan Mall
Creative Director, Advisor, CEO and Founder of SuperFriendly
Dan Mall is a creative director and advisor from Philly. He’s the founder and CEO of SuperFriendly, a design collaborative that helps in-house teams make better digital products with design systems. Dan is an enthralled husband & dad, author of Pricing Design, and co-founder of SuperBooked, a service that helps you find work with a little help from your friends. He writes about design and other issues on Twitter and on his industry-recognized site, danmall.me.

You can find Dan on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.

Chris and Emily Campbell discuss the convergence of design and code, and what that actually looks like. They walk through what a designer role looks like in a modern digital product team and Emily explains her idea that design and development are the same. They just have different approaches to the same process or medium.

Other topics the duo touch on include questioning if designers should learn to code, intent around design and development, the importance of making intentional decisions, and more.


Emily Campbell
Senior Design Specialist, InVision
Emily is a veteran design and product practitioner. She is currently a Senior Designer on InVision's Design Transformation team, where she helps teams and leaders increase their impact by maturing their practices and developing a culture of learning and collaboration. She focuses on human-centered design, translating creative strategy into business value, building a culture of leadership, and sharing ownership across disciplines. On the side, Emily enjoys exploring the desert around her home in Moab, Utah with her husband and three kids.

You can find Emily on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Other Show Notes
Learn about Conway's Law and the Portland Swifts.

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In the pilot episode of the Design Systems Podcast, host Chris Strahl talks with Evan Lovely about design systems as a whole. What are they? Who are they meant for? What are the benefits? And more.


Evan Lovely
CTO and Co-Founder, Basalt and Knapsack
Evan is the CTO of Basalt. His pragmatism and craftsmanship are contagious within project teams. He believes that encouraging creativity, tinkering, and close collaboration leads to the most elegant solutions. A respected and trusted resource in the tech community, Evan is the Pattern Lab PHP Maintainer, an open-source platform for static site generation using atomic design.

You can find Evan on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Other Show Notes
In this episode, the guys are drinking Migration Brewing's Straight Outta Portland IPA.

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Chris and Shawn explore how design tools shape final products, emphasizing the crucial role of managing elements like forms and tables. Shawn shares insights on uniting Adobe departments for greater cohesion and how Spectrum 2 reflects organizational change. They discuss AI integration in design interfaces, drawing parallels with Apple's iPhone design evolution, highlighting AI's potential to revolutionize user experiences. Hear about intricacies of translating visual designs into functional code and maintaining brand consistency across product suites. They reflect on the challenges and excitement of problem-solving iterations, the evolution of design systems, and aligning brand with user experience.

View the transcript of this episode.

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Guest
As a Senior Director of Experience Design at Adobe, Shawn Cheris runs Spectrum—an organization responsible for the overall brand and experience of all Adobe products—with teams focused on design systems, brand, iconography, content strategy, engineering, prototyping, and more. Outside of work, Shawn is also a father and husband and enjoys building (physical) things, photography, making music, cooking, baking, and a million other hobbies he wishes he had more time for. 

Host
Chris 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.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.

In this episode of the Design Systems Podcast, we explore the intricate world of theme management in complex design systems at Intuit. Nate Baldwin, Principal Designer at Intuit, shares a revolutionary framework for design tokens, enhancing governance and accessibility. We learn about Figma's role in color swapping and Intuit's theming engine for granular adjustments. Discover the balance between brand integrity and user personalization, and how tools like Leonardo and Proportion support adaptive theming. Join us for insights into personalized internet design and the challenges of thematic flexibility with Intuit's Nate Baldwin.

View the transcript of this episode.

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Guest
Nate Baldwin is a Principal Product Designer on the Intuit Design System team. Nate is experienced with multi-brand theming, adaptive color systems, and design tokens. He is the creator of Leonardocolor.io, Proportio.app, and the interactive color guide ColorAndContrast.com. Connect with Nate at https://natebaldw.in.

Host
Chris 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.


Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.

In this episode of the Design Systems Podcast, we invite you to join us as we engage in a conversation with David Müller, a product designer and design systems lead at one of the world’s top financial institutions. Together, we dive deep into the intricate landscape of banking systems, exploring the complexities of equipping problem solvers with the necessary tools. Gain insights into the importance of flexibility over a rigid "super component" and the significance of considering diverse user contexts. Join Chris and David as they discuss how AI is reshaping empathetic design systems, deliberate breakpoints for personalization, David's innovative design system, and the concept of an anti-fragile system. They emphasize cultivating patterns for innovation and balancing creativity with structure. Explore the future of UX/UI in an AI-driven world as they challenge conventional design practices in this thought-provoking episode.

View the transcript of this episode.

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Guest
David Müller is a product and systems design lead who believes that HOW we do things is as important as WHAT we do. He spends a big part of his day bringing architecture, development, and product teams closer together to build products that make a real difference in the lives of their users, and do so more predictably.

Host
Chris 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.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.

PJ Onori, a design systems veteran since 2011 and a driving force behind Pinterest's Gestalt system, talks about the transformative impact of design systems on product development, potentially reshaping the job landscape in design and engineering. In this episode, PJ recounts a pivotal experience at Disney, highlighting the delicate balance between productivity gains and workforce dynamics.We explore the benefits and hurdles of design systems, emphasizing the need for systems thinking, criticality, and adaptability in today's job market. Discover how new hires are shaping future cultures by embracing these systems, and how design systems foster collaboration between design and engineering teams, beyond efficiency and ROI. PJ shares insights into overcoming resistance to design constraints and empowering designers within boundaries to unleash creativity. This episode is essential for understanding the interplay between creativity, structure, and the evolving landscape of product design and development.

View the transcript of this episode.

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Guest
PJ has been working on design systems off and on since 2011 for companies such as General Electric, Disney and Pinterest. PJ is keynote speaker at the Design Systems Leadership Summit in San Francisco on April 18, 2024. If you're looking to connect with PJ and other leaders transforming the world of digital product development, submit your application to attend.

Host
Chris 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.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.

Join us for a milestone episode of The Design Systems Podcast, featuring Brian Dorsey, a key contributor to Mastercard's groundbreaking design system MADE. Explore how integrating designers into infrastructure teams has revolutionized collaboration. Discover how Mastercard leverages its design system to drive business forward with insights on accessibility, performance, and themability. Learn about per-component versioning and system-level versioning and how they accelerate product development.

View the transcript of this episode.

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Guest
Brian Dorsey is a Director of Platform Product Management at Mastercard Data & Services, with a focus on building a development platform that accelerates time to market for products and provides a great developer experience. He treats the design system as front end infrastructure and a key piece of the overall platform.

Host
Chris 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.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.

On this episode of DSP, we welcome guest Jackie Lai, a lead UX designer at OPIS, a Dow Jones company, with a rich background in interactive and product design. Explore Jackie's diverse design journey from web to physical products and the transformation of design tools. Discover the importance of cross-functional collaboration and the perpetual evolution of design systems. Jackie shares insights on balancing uniformity and flexibility, creating adaptable systems for mass production, and seeking continuous learning in the field. 

View the transcript of this episode.

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Guest
Jackie Lai is deeply committed to fostering team empowerment through collaboration, shared services, and infrastructure design that ultimately benefits our end users. With over two decades of experience, she has honed her interdisciplinary skill set working in a wide variety of settings from startups to established giants. When not working, you'll find her exploring the globe, connecting with nature, practicing yoga, and savoring the art of preparing and enjoying matcha.

Host
Chris 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.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.

In this episode of The Design Systems Podcast, we’re joined by guest Kevin Muldoon, Lead Design Technologist/Design Systems at Dow Jones, to discuss the concepts of alexandrian patterns and their application in design systems. We explore the idea of themes as reusable objects to solve specific design problems, discussing the challenges and potential solutions in creating composable and scalable design systems. The conversation dives deep into the evolution of design methodologies and the democratization of the creative process.

View the transcript of this episode.

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Guest
Kevin Muldoon is a designer, programmer, writer and speaker on Design Systems and a Lead Design Technologist at Dow Jones. He created the Genome Color Tool palette generator and advocates the study of Game Design to create Design Systems at scale.

Host
Chris 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.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

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Curt Schreiber, Chief Creative Officer at VSA Partners, joins us for a compelling conversation on the multifaceted nature of design systems. We explore how these intricate frameworks must cater to a diverse array of users and stakeholders, highlighting the need for design systems to personify the organization's character. Curt shares his insights on maintaining design systems that are not only comprehensive and scalable but also flexibly attuned to the global audiences they serve. Throughout the episode, we address the importance of co-creation, continuous learning, and governance in the ever-expanding world of design.

Tune in to witness Curt's balanced view on the role of AI in asset creation and system management, while he weighs in on the prospect of centralizing control versus nurturing a rich ecosystem of design assets. The discussion encapsulates the pivotal role of design systems in strategic business conversations, underscoring their ability to reshape customer engagement and drive organizational change.

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Guest
Curt Schreiber is the heart of VSA design. He currently guides VSA’s creative philosophy, and is responsible for establishing the office’s design standards and offerings. Throughout his 30-year tenure with the company, Curt has been essential in the agency’s transition from a boutique design firm to a brand-led customer experience agency. Curt has decades of experience working with internationally-recognized global brands, and his client list includes VSA’s most prominent clientele. He also serves as an influential thought leader within the creative industry. Most recently, Curt was named one of Chicago’s most influential designers and included in AIGA’s This is Chicago. Curt’s work has been recognized by more than 100 international design and communications organizations, publications and competitions including the AIGA, Cannes Lions, Cooper Hewitt, Communication Arts, Graphis and the Society of Typographic Arts. His work is also included in the permanent collection of the U.S. Library of Congress.

Host
Chris 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.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

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This week we are joined by Nick Hahn to explore how designers, engineers, product managers, and entire organizations have changed the way they think about and work with design systems. Nick shares insight from his experiences at IBM, InVision, Meta, and Bill.com to highlight the importance of collaboration, governance, education, and cultural adoption. Join host, Chris Strahl and Nick to understand how design systems evolved and what’s next..

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Guest

Nick Hahn has spent 20+ years working in the design industry. He specializes in the human side of Design, building scalable systems and operations for some of the top brands in the world, including IBM, Meta, and Bill.com.

Host
Chris 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.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

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Jina Anne and Adekunle Oduye join host Chris Strahl in a candid conversation that explores career pathways within the evolving realm of design systems amidst the latest market conditions. They share valuable insights on how the key to thriving in uncertain times is through understanding the nuanced dance between business language and design practice. Jina, renowned for her pioneering efforts in design tokens at Salesforce, illustrates the importance of scalability and care for user experience. Adekunle, drawing from his experience as lead design engineer at Plaid, discusses the intricate balancing act of adopting new technologies while maintaining user trust and meeting business objectives.

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Speakers
Jina (they/she) is a design systems advocate. They founded Clarity, a design systems community conference, and they maintain the Design Systems Slack. Jina co-chairs the Design Tokens Community Group. And on the Sass core team, they lead the brand and website design and development. Jina is also recognized as a Google Developers Expert (in Web Technologies [UI and Tooling]). Jina has been making websites as a hobby for about 30 years. They’ve worked professionally in the industry for 22 years (19 of those years working with design systems). They have been said to be one of the most cheerful goths.

Adekunle Oduye (Add-eh-koon-lay Oh-due-yay) is an UX Engineer born / breed / based in Brooklyn, New York. Currently he's at Plaid, where he's helping to build Threads, Plaid's official design system. Outside of work he's a coach, speaker, and co-hosts the Code and Pixels podcast. He's very passionate about design systems, prototyping, and front-end development. When he's not building software, you can probably find him reading up on Stoicism or planning my next adventure.

Host
Chris 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.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

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In this episode of the Design Systems Podcast, we discuss the evolution of design systems with special guest Matt Weinberg, Senior Product Designer at Angi. Matt has a passion for empathy-driven design solutions and shares his unconventional career path that led him to tackle the challenge of refining and improving the design systems at Angi. He reveals how he approached the initial state of the design system, identified user needs, and implemented incremental improvements. Matt also shares the importance of gathering user feedback, conducting usability tests, and embracing a collaborative approach between designers and engineers. His insights provide a valuable roadmap for anyone navigating the complex world of design systems.

View the transcript of this episode.

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Guest
Matt Weinberg is a systems-specialized product designer from Brooklyn, NY, currently working on design systems for Angi. He is largely focused on design system ergonomics, designer-engineer collaboration, tooling + workflows, accessibility, and keeping systematic UI creative + fun.

Host
Chris 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.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.

Josh Clark and Chris Strahl dive into an in-depth discussion about navigating the digital landscape amidst economic unpredictability. They discuss the intricacies of building and maintaining design systems in large organizations, addressing the challenges of scaling, and emphasizing the strategic value of digital investments. Josh, an advocate for design systems as capital expenditure, shares his expertise on how these systems contribute to product development, impact revenue, and enhance customer retention, all while ensuring a balance between innovation and automation.

View the transcript of this episode.

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Guest

Josh Clark is the founder and principal of Big Medium, a digital agency that specializes in big design, helping complex organizations design at scale. He‘s a UX design leader who guides projects to build design systems and transform digital organizations through emerging technology, process, and user experience. At Big Medium, Josh’s clients include Caterpillar, United Airlines, UPS, the Cigna Group, Dotdash Meredith, Pfizer, and many others.

Host

Chris 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.


Sponsor

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

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Chris Strahl sits with Nathan Curtis as he explores the delicate balance between reusing existing components and creating customized solutions in UI design. They unpack the complexities of design systems, touching on everything from color selection to ensuring functional and aesthetic harmony, providing insights on principled design choices in a world where reuse and customization are equally important.

View the transcript of this episode here.

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Guest

Nathan co-founded EightShapes with Dan Brown near Washington, DC in 2006. He’s passionate about information architecture, user experience design, and front end development, and leads and consults with design systems teams to chart a strategic path and optimize operations. He wrote Modular Web Design in 2009, blogs about design systems regularly, and speaks at events worldwide.

Host

Chris 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.

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Join Chris Strahl as he sits with Lisa Apers, a visionary in UI design, as she presents her innovative research on brainwave-responsive user interfaces. Explore how EEG sensors integrated into UIs can revolutionize our digital experiences, creating interfaces that dynamically adapt to individual cognitive states and daily activities. 

View the transcript of this episode here.

Check out our upcoming events here.

Guest

I’m an independent designer and researcher. Partnering with change makers, I craft scalable digital experiences through various services across brand, web and product design.

Host

Chris 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.

Join Chris Strahl and Tim Banker on an exciting dive into the world of innovative design systems. They explore the creation of tailored solutions for a diverse range of global markets, showcasing how a 'system of systems' approach can meet various needs, from marketing to transactional experiences. Get ready to transcend the one-size-fits-all model and redefine design flexibility.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘Design System Roadmap & Strategy for the Enterprise’ on November 29th. 

Guest

Tim Banker serves as Senior Director of Global Experience Design at Slalom Consulting. He specializes in helping companies on their journey toward design at scale, with a focus on design systems, design & research operations, and enterprise accessibility strategy.

Resources:

https://erinmeyer.com/books/the-culture-map/
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/crosscultural-design/
https://www.w3.org/blog/international/
https://www.w3.org/TR/international-specs/
https://uxknowledgebase.com/internationalization-localization-d84795b7962c
https://rtlstyling.com/
https://systems-of-harm.fireside.fm/

Host

Chris 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.

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Join Chris Strahl as he sits with Alex Wilson and Jon Reidy as they discuss their approach to evolving with community demands at T. Rowe Price. Dive into the dynamic process of identifying what drives your customers, crafting solutions that resonate, and ensuring widespread adoption of these innovations. 

View the transcript of this episode here.

Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘Design System Roadmap & Strategy for the Enterprise’ on November 29th. 

Guest

Alex is the Engineering Manager and Technical Lead of the Design System at T. Rowe Price. He specializes in leveraging web standards to craft performant, accessible, and interoperable components that enhance both user and developer experiences.

Jon is a Design System leader at T. Rowe Price. He previously led the Design System at HSBC and has been specializing in this space for around 8 years.

Host

Chris 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.

Join Chris Strahl and Maya Hampton as they unpack the power of usage data and its pivotal role in driving adoption, efficiency, and quality. Dive deep, discover the real value of design systems, and see how every component counts!

View the transcript of this episode here.

Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘Design System Roadmap & Strategy for the Enterprise’ on November 29th. 

Guest

Maya is the Senior Digital Product Manager for Design Systems at REI, where she leads a cross-functional team on a mission to build a robust foundation for the co-op's digital ecosystem. You can follow her work on the Cedar Design System at https://cedar.rei.com/

Host

Chris 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.

Join Chris Strahl and JJ Rogers, as they explore the challenges and triumphs of harmonizing diverse products at Watermark, highlighting how a harmonized ecosystem elevates user experience and ensures consistent design across all platforms.

View the transcript of this episode here.

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Guest

JJ Rogers serves as Director of Product Design at Watermark, a software provider helping institutions engage educators and learners to improve institutional effectiveness, program quality, and student learning. He brings a wealth of experience from his work in design consultancies to the mergers and acquisitions space, creating a unified, holistic suite of products for 1700+ higher ed institutions.

Host

Chris 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.

Join Chris Strahl, Kevin Goldman, and Sierre Wolfkostin as they sit down to explore the Fido Alliance's mission of revolutionizing online authentication by eliminating traditional passwords and replacing them with secure and user-friendly passkeys. Discover how these principles, tested and proven, are set to transform user experiences and incentivize the widespread use of passkeys, offering a glimpse into the future of design systems.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘What Really Matters in Design Systems’ on October 25th. 

Guests

Kevin is the Chief Experience Officer at Trusona where he helped create the Trusona Authentication Cloud — a passkey-as-a-service platform, offering the simplest, quickest, and lowest cost way to increase website engagement with passkeys. Prior to Trusona, Kevin founded the user experience (UX) consulting firm, 29th Drive, which was acquired three years later. Kevin serves as a FIDO Alliance Board member. He chartered and is Chair of the FIDO Alliance UX Working Group comprised of UX professionals from 31 global brands. Outside of work, he likes quality time with his kids, motorcycle track riding, forging knives, and time away from the fragile glowing screen.

Sierre is a product designer based in Ann Arbor, MI. With a learning mindset and a focus on understanding people, she has helped make Duo Security’s authentication experience both easier and more secure for all. Most recently, she led design for the Universal Prompt: a ground up UX and technical redesign of Duo’s core 2FA product. She now works to help kill the password and further improve our industry’s standards for authentication in partnership with the FIDO Alliance. Sierre holds degrees in UX design and business from the University of Michigan. In her free time, she enjoys writing non-fiction, reading books, and greeting the neighborhood cats.

Host

Chris 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.

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Recording during Config 2024, this bonus episode of The Design Systems Podcast features long-time friends of the Pod, Jina Anne and Adekunle Oduye. They share their fresh takes on the latest Figma keynote, including the buzz around AI-generated designs and the revamped Figma UI. The conversation explores the future of design systems, deeper code integrations, and personalized user experiences enabled by AI. Plus, Jina and Adekunle give a sneak peek into their upcoming book! 

View the transcript of this episode.

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Guest

Jina Anne is a designer, developer, and community advocate. She founded Clarity (ClarityConf.com), the premier design systems community conference, and organizes meet-ups in the San Francisco area.).Jina is also a published author and public speaker. 

Adekunle Oduye is UX engineer specializing in design systems, front-end development and prototyping. He is also an avide travel fan, host of the Code & Pixels Podcast, and working with Jina Anne to write a book. 

Host
Chris 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.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Send us feedback or episode suggestions.

Chris Strahl sits with Jay Smith as they unravel the secrets of REI's design system consistency. Uncover how their groundbreaking approach to design, colors, and tokens is reshaping standards. With an eco-friendly twist: for every contribution to the system, trees are planted. As the system grows, so does a forest.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘What Really Matters in Design Systems’ on October 25th. 

Guest

Jay Smith is a systems thinker who loves building clever, durable solutions to root-cause problems. A Principal Product Designer at REI, he’s been creating and curating the decisions used by teams across the nation’s largest consumer cooperative for over a decade.

Host

Chris 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 Strahl sits with Jamie Totten from Klue and they unpack the unique challenges and benefits of implementing a design system in a fast-paced startup. Drawing inspiration from Spotify's "guild format", they emphasize the importance of voluntary commitment, maintaining positivity and on making the most with limited resources.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘What Really Matters in Design Systems’ on October 25th. 

Guest

Jamie Totten is a UX Engineer at Klue, where he facilitates and coordinates the Design System Guild efforts, and hopes to someday turn the guild into a real team. Embedded on the Design team, he supports product and engineering teams with their features. He loves systems thinking, design, and engineering. He also loves clean, well structured code, and thoughtful design that solves human problems.

Host

Chris 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 Strahl sits with Juli Sombat from Spotify and Jason Pamental from Chewy as they unravel the evolution of digital typography, emphasizing the shift from dictation to suggestion. They explore the dynamic between designers and users and the transformative power of user customization.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘What Really Matters in Design Systems’ on October 25th.

Guests

Juli Sombat is the design lead for Encore, Spotify’s family of design systems. Her passion for cross-functional collaboration and her deep understanding of the principles and practices that underpin successful design systems help her evangelize for systems thinking at all levels. Prior to Encore, she led the multi-brand design system at Conde Nast.

Jason Pamental is a Principal Designer at Chewy working on their design system, an Invited Expert on the W3C’s Web Fonts Working Group, and a deeply nerdy fan of variable fonts and web typography. Or just another hack with a camera phone, walking around at sunrise posting pictures of a really photogenic collie.

Link to the Monotype article Jason wrote: https://labs.monotype.com/caseco-a-case-for-variable-fonts-2d86960a0c19

Host

Chris 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 Strahl sits with Tony Pantello and Chris Henke who tackle the age-old conflict between design and development. They discuss harnessing the power of design systems to streamline collaboration, conquer inefficiency, and unlock the true potential of their teams.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘What Really Matters in Design Systems’ on October 25th. 

Guest

Tony Pantello is a Senior UI/UX Designer and Product Design Team Lead at Accutech Systems based in Muncie, IN. He was the catalyst behind the creation of Accutech’s design system and is privileged to guide a small but mighty team building out Accutech’s product design discipline. He firmly believes that the waffle is the best sugary breakfast entree and can talk for days about his shark tank business ideas.

Chris Henke is a Senior UI/UX Developer on the Product Design team at Accutech Systems Inc. based in Muncie, IN. He helped build the design system at Accutech and is helping bring a focus to the front-end development and user experience of Accutech products.

Host

Chris 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.

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Chris Strahl and Billea Breen explore the essential interaction between design and development to craft a flawless user experience, offering tactics to maintain consistency and enhance workflows.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘What Really Matters in Design Systems’ on October 25th. 

Guest

Meet Billea, the Senior UX Designer at Monster who weaves tech magic into seamless user experiences. With a knack for bridging design and development and a passion for strong foundations, she crafts digital solutions that resonate with all users.

Host

Chris 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 Strahl and Mark Reynolyds navigate the ever-changing world of design systems, exploring the idea that design and engineering roles will become more aligned in the near future.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘Theming in Complex Ecosystems’ with Donnie D’Amato on August 30th. 

Guest

Mark Reynolds is a design systems expert who works with enterprise organisations to set up successful design system practices. He is a consultant, educator and mentor in this space and helps elevate the benefits of design systems across the industry.

Host

Chris 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 Strahl talks with Kevin Broich about his transition from backend developer to designer at Cisco. Kevin shares insights on creating a crucial CSS-based UI kit for Cisco's major rebranding phase and more.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘Theming in Complex Ecosystems’ with Donnie D’Amato on August 30th. 

Guest

Kevin Broich, Design Systems advocate. Experienced front-end architect, developer, designer and UI evangelist.  I live at the intersection of design and engineering. Always looking for ways to increase efficiency, reduce friction, and innovate with new tools, automation and processes.

Host

Chris 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 Strahl chats with Kate and Cinita on Pinterest's design system, Gestalt. Learn how their team built a system prioritizing documentation, inclusivity and accessibility. A space designed to ensure global and remote activity, encouraging users to easily contribute and communicate effectively. 

View the transcript of this episode here.

Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘Theming in Complex Ecosystems’ with Donnie D’Amato on August 30th. 

Guests

Kate Halvorsen is a product designer based in Chicago, IL. She’s currently a staff product designer working on the mobile side of Pinterest’s Gestalt Design System. A big part of her day to day is advocating for experiences that are both accessible and equitable. She enjoys newstalgia design, slow travel and a good lavender matcha latte.

Cintia Romero is a product designer with over 12 years of experience building products and experiences for multiple platforms. Latina from Brazil, working at Pinterest as a Senior Product Designer on Gestalt, our Design System, and advocating for human-centered design while spreading good practices related to accessibility, diversity, and inclusion. 

Host

Chris 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.

Join Chris Strahl as he sits down with Sriram Ramasubramanian from Meta to discuss the intricacies of designing at scale. Dive deep into the world of design systems, Figma plugins, design tokens, and the challenges of interoperability across multiple platforms.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘Theming in Complex Ecosystems’ with Donnie D’Amato on August 30th. 

Guest

Sriram Ramasubramanian is a Senior Engineering Manager supporting Design Systems at Meta. Sriram has many years of experience building component libraries on several UI frameworks and shipping app-wide design updates. Sriram is currently focused on interoperable design systems at scale. 

Host

Chris 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 and Robin discuss creating an environment and ecosystem where people are excited to use design systems; and the importance these systems have when encouraging trust and accountability to assist teams with their work.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘Theming in Complex Ecosystems’ with Donnie D’Amato on August 30th.

Guest

Robin Cannon is Executive Director and Head of Design System at J.P. Morgan. He was previously Global Director of Design Systems for IBM iX, and Program Director for IBM's Carbon Design System.

Host

Chris 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.