Design Systems People/Portfolios
Out of context: Reply #1
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- duckseason2
I know that feeling well. I work on a small, two-person team in charge of all things web design for a 5,000+ person organization—we handle the systems, documentation, components, templates, one-off landing pages, bespoke experiences, animation, research, user testing, and more.
What you've described can be about as dull as they get from a visual perspective. Or, you can see it as a challenge: how do you take something as inherently boring as WCAG compliance or token systems and turn it into something refreshing? What's a non-traditional way to represent this work? How can you take that work and turn it into a visually interesting artifact that still highlights the foundational thinking that went into it? While I don't have any examples of portfolios, the Dropbox Brand Guidelines site is, IMO, a good example for injecting fun and interactivity into what could easily be a forgettable, 'left-nav/right-content' page; specifically the color and type pages.
There's a part of design systems that scratches a methodical itch, but it can definitely leave you feeling drained and uninspired—I'm certainly feeling that now. At the same time, I still appreciate a good design challenge and the opportunity to not be constrained by the rigidity of the system I helped create. XD
- Drained and uninspired Is exactly how I feel. I did a lot of exciting, experimental stuff, but it was all very specific to my last employer, their tech stacks,5timuli
- brand identity, and eng prioritization.All things which are valuable to discuss, but I don’t want a portfolio full of meaningless diagrams and pic of post-it5timuli
- notes. Fucking yawn.5timuli
- Thankfully, my counterpart is MUCH more invested in the DS side of things, which leaves me more time to focus on everything else.duckseason