Design Systems for startups

Part 1 When does a startup actually need a Design System?

When does a startup actually need a Design System? Quick answer? Yesterday. 

Some people say Design Systems are only for larger organizations, but I disagree. Even if you only have one designer and one engineer, you still need some standards to be effective. Why is this? Because you’re making decisions over and over again, most likely with very little time. You don’t want to reinvent the wheel every time you create a mock. You also don’t want four type faces and twenty primary CTAs. And chances are, you have some sort of elemental brand identity you need to communicate. So, yeah, you need something, even if it’s as simple as ‘these are our colors’ and these are our ‘type treatments’.

And while folks may split hairs and call this a ‘style guide’ or similar, it’s ultimately a set of standards that are written down somewhere… i.e. a system of design. So, whatever. I call it a Design System. We can even call it a Proto-design System.

But that design system is going to look very different at a small organization versus the IBMs and the Googles of the world. Stay tuned for part two of this series where we’ll explore what a Design System actually looks like for a startup.