Problem:
There are no small amount of frontend engineers who would love to have a design system but designers are busy making prototypes for product workflows and haven’t organized a design system.
In such a scenario, what can you do?
Reverse engineer the design system.
Go over the prototypes that have been handed off to you from the designers.
Try to detect the patterns for colors, typography, spacing, etc.
Do your best to distinguish certain components that are generic enough for a design system.
Chances are that you’ll be able to have enough for a primitive design system. Start building a design tokens-based design system and generate UI assets.
Then, you have leverage to present your work to other devs and designers to get everyone onboard to invest in the project.
Michael Mangialardi
@michaelmangial1
Christian | Frontend Engineer | Design Systems Engineer. 📚 Author of “Design Systems for Developers” and "Rethinking Agile"
