Design System

Agency Design System

Social Driver wanted to unite their design and development teams around a shared process so I helped create a design system.

OverviewProcess
methods
Stakeholder Presentation
Component Systems
Research & Strategy

Project Overview

As a senior designer on the Social Driver web team, I was interested to see how a design system could help my colleagues feel more productive, more creative, and more connected.

I initiated and led this project because I believe that design systems are about solving common problems once, documenting those solutions for everyone to see and understand, and using that baseline as a launching pad for true innovation.

Every designer wants to be innovative. And it's true, sometimes innovation means rolling up your sleeves and starting from a blank canvas. But we turn to design systems when we realize there is nothing romantic about solving a problem that’s already been solved. My purpose for this project was to see if I could help that idea start to feel like common sense across departments.

cross-functional team
Design Director
Casey DenBleyker
UX Designer
Emilia Totzeva
UX Designer
Jake Reid
UX Designer
Kelly Molloy
Visual Designer
Nathan Lindahl
Visual Designer
Kayla Kinley
team
Social Driver is a digital marketing company based in Washington, DC. The team serves businesses and nonprofits by providing strategy and design for websites, videos, and social media.
Client

My Role

:

Senior Visual Designer

project role description

methods
Stakeholder Presentation
Component Systems
Research & Strategy

The User

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The Business

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Project Impact

By communicating with empathy and technical understanding, I started a conversation about new ways of working together.

One of my goals as a designer is to illuminate the value of design in relatable terms for people outside the design team. By working to understand the needs of UX designers, developers, and leadership/sales, I started a conversation about a new model for solving problems wisely, efficiently, and completely.

With more time and resources for this project, I would begin to work with developers to create, test, and refine each design component. The scope of the project allowed for the creation of a static library of design components in Sketch. While this artifact proved useful for the design team, the ultimate goal would be to create as much synchronized thinking as possible between teams.