Meet the team

Alexis Lucio

Senior Accessibility Designer•@alexislucio

What drew you to design systems?

Design systems were initially described to me as “a centralized hub for designers and developers to build faster, more efficiently, and consistent.” That made a lot of sense and it’s easier said that done. When I started to work in web accessibility (a11y), I realized the biggest impact I could make on a product was through an accessible design system versus one-off product fixes, which only increased my interest.

Who have you learned from or been inspired by?

I am extremely grateful to have a series of mentors that have created brave spaces for me as someone in tech with multiple marginalized identities. Most recently, I’ve been inspired by the compassion and optimism of the a11y community, and younger generations who realize that web accessibility is civil and humane right versus an afterthought.

Favorite tools

Figma, Inspect, Colour Contrast Analyzer (CCA), Slack, Spotify, dance breaks

Allie Thu

Accessibility Design Manager•@alliethu

What drew you to design systems?

Early on in my career, I felt a natural pull towards design systems as I've always been a person who finds great joy in consolidating, organizing, and making sense of messy things. As soon as I began to specialize in accessibility, the power and importance of design systems became even more clear, ultimately turning into the core of my work.

Who have you learned from or been inspired by?

I believe I inherited my curiousity and love for learning from my dad. My husband, who has helped teach me that I can be both a #bossatwork and a #bossmom. The Accessibility community who is small, but mighty, working hard to empower and educate people like me to grow the community even further. Lastly, all the open source design systems out there!

Favorite tools

Notion, Slack, Figma, Microsoft Accessibility Insights, Spotify

Daniel Guillan

Systems Designer•@danielguillan

What drew you to design systems?

I first learned about design systems through the work of Joseph Müller-Brockmann, Massimo Vignelli, and Otl Aicher. I was fascinated by their principles, the patterns they developed, the modularity of their approach, and the abstractions they established. All that gave me an entirely new perspective and understanding of design. I later connected these learnings to my work while scaling user interfaces on startups and larger organizations.

Who have you learned from or been inspired by?

I've been very fortunate to learn and work with many inspiring designers, engineers, and product people over the last few years. Aitor, Anna, Javi, Miguel, and Ricardo, to name just a few. Also, I've learned a lot about design, process, thinking, and strategy from Oliver Reichenstein and Ryan Singer, and code from Nicolas Gallagher, Harry Roberts, and Lea Verou.

Favorite tools

Obsidian, iA Writer, Lamy 2000, Framer, VS Code, Next.js, Vercel, Raycast, coffee, rum

Emily Hiller

Systems Designer•@emilybrick

What drew you to design systems?

I was initially drawn to design systems while working on a small team, where we were stretched thin and struggling to keep the front-end and user experience afloat, recreating components and patterns by hand over and over again. We needed consistency, stability, a bridge between designers and developers, and a more efficient workflow. Once we put a design language and system in place, I was sold on the value. I find it fascinating how many approaches to design systems there are out there, and how different they can be depending on the individual product and teams’ needs.

Who have you learned from or been inspired by?

Inge Druckrey and Edward Tufte inspired me to get into design, and introduced me to the world of typographic and informational systems (simultaneously). This talk by Bret Victor helped me feel less alone when I was starting out in the industry; at a time when code and design weren't yet openly intertwined. I’m also inspired by the folks behind designbetter.co for making knowledge around design systems transparent and available to everyone. Additionally, and there are too many people to name, people like Una Kravetz, Sarah Drasner, Tim Holman, and Val Head are always on my radar, keeping the internet weird and creative and continuously pushing the boundaries of what's possible.

Favorite tools

Atom, Figma, Bear, Dash, Slack

Favorite CSS feature

align-items: center;

Eric Bailey

Senior Accessibility Designer•@ericwbailey

What drew you to design systems?

Design systems help ensure rock-solid, accessible patterns get distributed and updated at scale. This is vital to help ensuring digital experiences such as GitHub are usable by all.

Who have you learned from or been inspired by?

Too many to name here. The digital accessibility space is full of kind, intelligent, passionate people, and I owe much of my growth and career to their collective knowledge.

Favorite tools

Figma, VS Code, Slack, VoiceOver, NVDA, Dropbox Paper, Obsidian, and copious amounts of iced coffee.

Marie Lucca

Software Engineer•@francinelucca

What drew you to design systems?

I was enticed by the prospect of doing work that is impactful at a company-wide scale and beyond, and the striveness for excellence that performing at such a critical, very low-error-tolerance environment entails. I am always very proud to see the results of my team's and my hard work materialized in beautiful, useful applications deployed worldwide. I also appreciate the opportunity to work very closely with design while still wearing a developer hat.

Who have you learned from or been inspired by?

I've had the opportunity to work and be mentored by some truly amazing folks. From managers, technology leaders, software architects, professors turned colleagues, and more. I appreciate every professional I have and will interface with along my journey and take a small piece of them with me wherever I go.

Honorable mentions go to Sergio Lopez, the college professor that took me under his wing and beared with me as I broke production more times than I'd be willing to admit, closely followed by Joe Harvey, who taught me the difference between software development and engineering.

Favorite tools

VSCode, GitHub, TypeScript, React, middle-of-the-day naps, high-speed internet, and, most importantly, a mini can of Coke Zero.

Favorite CSS feature

calc(<wild-math-equation-here>)

Hector Garcia

Accessibility Software Engineer•@hectahertz

What drew you to design systems?

Having worked on a few different projects over the years I realized that having a solid design system is one of the best ways to build faster, more consistent, accessible, and overall higher quality products. I love focusing on the details of all the different pieces of a design system and how they fit together to create awesome experiences for both end users and developers.

Who have you learned from or been inspired by?

I've been fortunate to learn so much from my colleagues over the years! I'm also a big fan of all the people that write and share content with the community. Some of my favorites are Sara Soueidan, Sarah Drasner, Marcy Sutton, Steve Schoger, Suz Hinton and Salma Alam-Naylor.

Favorite tools

iTerm, Visual Studio Code, Edge, Firefox, Microsoft Accessibility Insights, axe Accessibility Linter, GitHub, Spotify, Quip

Chelsea Adelman

Accessibility Systems Designer•@ichelsea

What drew you to design systems?

The majority of my time as a designer has been within product design, and pursuing my passion for accessible design started early on. I began finding that accessibility and systems thinking were intrinsically linked, so transitioning to design systems to focus on accessibility was a natural course. Being able to affect change that helps people has always been a deep-seated need of mine to fill with my work, and I'm able to do that two-fold in design systems to help product designers and end users.

Who have you learned from or been inspired by?

Years ago when I was interested in learning how to fix computers, a coworker once told me that you could teach a monkey to build a computer. The meaning behind this was that I could go out and learn whatever I wanted regardless of previous knowledge or background, as long as the desire was there. I really took this to heart with me and it's been a key part of my growth to where I am today. I've been able to learn from countless coworkers over the years who have shared their knowledge and helped me grow.

Favorite tools

Figma, Microsoft Edge, Microsoft Accessibility Insights, Procreate and GoodNotes on iPad, Obsidian, custom mechanical keyboards

Jon Rohan

Software Engineer•@jonrohan

What drew you to design systems?

I have had a fascination with front end engineering and UI for all of my career. Early on at GitHub I recognized the need to organize our code into reusable components. When the team formalized I had to be involved.

Who have you learned from or been inspired by?

Both past and present I have to acknowledge that Nicole Sullivan has been profoundly influential in the way I front-end and write CSS. When she introduced concepts of OOCSS it brought me from thinking very linearly about CSS to a whole new range of systems thinking.

Favorite tools

Atom, Bash/Shell, Figma, GitHub, iTerm, Javascript, MacBook Pro, Things

Favorite CSS feature

grid-template-areas: "header header header" "footer footer footer"

Josh Black

Software Engineer•@joshblack

What drew you to design systems?

I love how they foster an environment and culture of continuously learning, growing, and connecting within a community. Being able to support people in their day-to-day work is so rewarding to me, especially when these tools or resources help to improve the access of everything we make.

Who have you learned from or been inspired by?

I've always loved watching talks by Alan Kay. The way he thinks about the future and inventing for it makes me so hopeful and excited.

I also enjoy revisiting talks from Sebastian Markbåge, Nicholas Matsakis, and Sandi Metz. I learn something new each time as I hear them talk about their approach to writing code and incrementally evolving complex systems over time.

When it comes to accessibility, I am forever grateful for all the resources, writing, and presentations from Adrian Roselli, Sarah Higley, and Scott O'Hara. Their work has been so influential to my own.

Finally, when it comes to building and supporting teams I've loved going through resources from Julie Zhou, Lara Hogan, and Will Larson.

Favorite tools

NeoVim, GitHub, ARIA APG, coffee, Figma, Spotify

Favorite CSS feature

var(--css-custom-properties)

Josh Farrant

Senior Software Engineer•@joshfarrant

What drew you to design systems?

In many ways, the creation of Storybook. Version 3 coincided with the start of my second React project and started me thinking about how I might be able to design components once and share them between the two apps, leading to my first basic design system. Over the years I've focused more of my time on design systems, refined my skills, and fallen deeper down the rabbit hole.

Who have you learned from or been inspired by?

Brad Frost's work on Atomic Design and his vision for a Global Design System have significantly informed how I think about design systems. Dave Rupert has opened my eyes to how much is possible with Web Components, Bartosz Ciechanowski showcases exceptional writing and storytelling on the web, and I find continuous inspiration from Una Kravets, Jen Simmons, and Adam Argyle, as well as the superior Joshs; Collinsworth and Comeau.

Favorite tools

Raycast, Obsidian, TypeScript, Web Components, V60, ZSA Moonlander, OP-1

Favorite CSS feature

CSS nesting

Katie Langerman

Systems Designer•@langermank

What drew you to design systems?

I have a background in design but also love writing code, and design systems are very welcoming to multi-disciplinary folks. I love how design systems bring people together across orgs and create a shared language for collaboration.

Who have you learned from or been inspired by?

Medium posts from Nathan Curtis kept me afloat while I worked on my first design system, along with the community in Jina's Design Systems slack.

I've learned my favorite CSS trickery from Andy Bell, Rachel Andrew, Stephanie Eckles, Sara Soueidan, and Una.

Various design podcasts including SimpleBits, Honest Designers, Design Details, Design Better, and CSS Podcast

Favorite tools

VS Code, Firefox dev tools, CSS, Figma, Pika, Notion

Leslie Cohn-Wein

Engineering Manager•@lesliecdubs

What drew you to design systems?

As an agency developer early in my career, it seemed we were always building the same UI with different styles. So why not build once, with enough flexibility to customize for many clients?

Later, it became clear to me that systems could boost the end user's experience through more than speed to production; systems multiply consistency, usability, and accessibility. And who doesn't want a top-notch, inclusive user experience which the makers can ship more quickly?

Who have you learned from or been inspired by?

We stand on the shoulders of giants. I deeply appreciate the former colleagues who have helped me learn and grow, all of the folks who write and speak in the design systems space, and the work of management leaders like Lara Hogan, Camille Fournier, Sarah Drasner, and Caree Youngman.

The playful, innovative work of my friend Charlie Gerard never fails to inspire and remind me what humans in tech are capable of creating.

Favorite tools

VS Code, React, CSS, axe Accessibility Linter, Netlify, and a big mug

Lukas Oppermann

Systems Designer•@lukasoppermann

What drew you to design systems?

As a product designer I always focused on creating a consistent experience. When I started as a designer, this meant building style guides and meticulously checking every screen before it was shipped. Over time this turned into design systems with coded components, design tokens, patterns and guidelines.

Who have you learned from or been inspired by?

I learned one of my most valuable lesson from Michael Beirut who is so modest and open about his mistakes. This helped me realise that being vulnerable is a strength that accelerates personal growth. James Clear, with his book “atomic habits” taught me that achieving big goals is done by taking one small step after another. I have also learned much from my friends and colleagues. I find that everybody has something to teach if you are willing to learn.

Favorite tools

VS Code, Figma, GitHub, Notion, Spotify, Raycast, Fig

Maxime De Greve

Systems Designer•@maximedegreve

What drew you to design systems?

Being part of a few startups I've always noticed that engineers quickly outgrew designers and when this happened it was hard to keep up as a designer. Small obvious design patterns would often need clarification because they weren't clear. System thinking has always reduced this problem and allowed us to move quickly without compromising on quality.

Who have you learned from or been inspired by?

Co-workers have always played a crucial part in growing into system thinking. Working as a designer on a design tool in the past I was also lucky to chat to endless of big companies trying to set up design systems as well.

Favorite tools

React, XCode, Figma, GitHub, Atom and 4pm biscuits

Mike Perrotti

Systems Designer•@mperrotti

What drew you to design systems?

I was frustrated by all of the inconsistent UI, duplicated work, and redundant meetings that my teams would have to deal with. I finally found a discipline where I could use my design skills and my engineering skills to solve meaty problems without being limited to a traditional design or engineering role.

Who have you learned from or been inspired by?

Working on a design system with Adam Detrick was invaluable and taught me so much. I'm also humbled and inspired by the work of David DeSandro, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Rachel Andrew, and Wei Huang.

Favorite tools

VS Code, Zsh, CSS, TypeScript, Figma, Adobe Illustrator, pen and paper, Microsoft To Do, Chrome Inspector

Favorite CSS feature

That's like asking me to pick a favorite child.

If I HAVE to pick: var(--custom-properties).

Charlotte Dann

Accessibility Software Engineer•@pouretrebelle

What drew you to design systems?

I get so much joy from writing HTML and CSS, and design systems are one level up - systematically making UIs accessible and consistent. I love concentrating on the tiny things like button states so product folk can build the big picture, knowing that the details are taken care of.

Who have you learned from or been inspired by?

Chris Coyier's CSS-Tricks was a hugely important resource for me when I was first learning how to make websites, and the community on CodePen is an endless source of inspiration.

Favorite tools

VS Code, DevTools, Figma, Notion, Field Notes, earl grey

Rayta van Rijswijk

Engineering Manager•@raytalks

What drew you to design systems?

Having worked in and with several different software development teams before, I've learned it takes more than a process to deliver fast, reliable, high performant, quality products.

Combining design and engineering on a stable system, while creating the most astonishing, accessible experience for our end users and developers is pure joy.

Who have you learned from or been inspired by?

I was fortunate to have had great mentors and colleagues who supported me througout my career and taught me the nitty gritty of programming. I'm a big fan of Katrina Owen, co-founder and director of Exercism. I adore the work of management leaders like Camille Fournier, and I devour books where I can learn about people like Erin Meyer's The Culture Map.

Favorite tools

Obsidian, Slack, Raycast, iTerm, hand lotion

Reza Rahman

Software Engineer•@rezrah

What drew you to design systems?

Design Systems gave me a unique opportunity to combine two of my passions: systems engineering with design operations. I find pleasure in the small details, like drawing component schematics, automating repetitive workflows, writing specifications, etc. Crucially, I enjoy building systems that others can use to optimise their own workflows and lives.

Who have you learned from or been inspired by?

I'm inspired by engineering thought leaders like Kent C. Dodds, Brian Lonsdorf (AKA Prof. Frisby), Eric Elliot, Dan Abramov, and all of my current and former colleagues in the space. I also enjoy following OG design system pioneers like Jina, Brad Frost, Nathan Curtis, Dan Mall and the work of teams like @salesforceux, @materialdesign, @spotifydesign, and it should go without saying… the team at @primer.

Favorite tools

Spotify, Figma, Photoshop, React + React Native, AWS, Notes (I know...), Flat Whites

Natalya Shelburne

Design Infrastructure Manager•@tallys

What drew you to design systems?

Technology and design being considered at odds is a recent invention. Design systems are just the way I think, so building bridges between design and engineering is at the heart of much of my work.

Who have you learned from or been inspired by?

I am fortunate to say that the list of people who have taught and inspired me is long. I am full of gratitude for the people who take the time and energy to teach, build tools for collaboration, and run communities that lift people up.

Favorite tools

Sublime Text, React, Pencil and Paper, Figma, GitHub, coffee

Favorite CSS feature

background-color: hotpink

Tyler Jones

Accessibility Software Engineer•@tylerjdev

What drew you to design systems?

Being able to utilize the same components throughout different applications is what I love about design systems. I believe it can be a powerful tool to keep consistency, especially in regards to accessibility. I also love the challenges that a design system brings, along with the rewards for the developers that utilize it.

Who have you learned from or been inspired by?

I've learned a ton from my colleagues in the past. Stephen, Kyle, Michael, John, Trevor, and so many others. I'm also a big fan of Adrian Roselli, Sara Soueidan, Marcy Sutton, and all the others who helped me gain more insights into accessibility as a whole.

Favorite tools

VS Code, NVDA, GitHub, CodePen, my notebook

Ash Guillaume

Systems Designer•@ashygee

What drew you to design systems?

I came into design systems very organically. When I began my career in the agency world, I worked within constraints of branding and style guidelines of our various clients. At the time I didn't fully recognize these guidelines as what we now refer to as design systems. As my career continued to grow I noticed that I began to be far more interested in how various companies/brands packaged the many pieces that made up their brand and/or products. I love how design systems bring together all the pieces in order to unleash endless creativity but still maintain the necessary constraints.

Who have you learned from or been inspired by?

I get a lot of my inspiration from the community I've built via Dribbble. A few of my favorites are the dynamic duo that makes of TheLittleLabs, Camilo and Aradhana, the illustration work by Enisaurus, and Kendrick Kidd.

When I first started my career, Frank Chimero was a huge inspiration. His book, The Shape of Design, really helped to form my philosophy and approach to problems and how to cultivate a design process. Along with that but not design related, Jason Fried has been a great inspiration to how I approach work. His book (written alongside David Heinemeier Hansson) Rework still is the best, no nonsense, business book I've ever read.

Favorite tools

Figma, Atom, Keynote, Bear Notes, Spark Mail, Spotify

Favorite CSS feature

align-items: center;

Aurora Pleguezuelo

Systems Designer•@auareyou

What drew you to design systems?

A few years back, I was an apprentice for a freelance product designer and my main responsibility was to document his designs and help his customers understand how to continue on with our designs. I loved extracting patterns and spending time writing documentation so every chance I had at any job after that I either participated or initiated the design systems efforts.

Who have you learned from or been inspired by?

I'll start with a lesson from a book. Mark Manson helped me stop looking for shortcuts. Javier Cañada pushed me to think about design outside technology and be inspired by history, literature, philosophy... Sasha Prokhorova taught me that design is not just about craft. She made me a better professional along with some others who I consider my mentors like David la Iglesia, Adrian Mato or Emily Hayman. From Yaili I learned to love design systems documentation and how to show others the value of it. Then Nathan Curtis content became the manual on how to write and present documentation. Yesenia helped me see how design systems can be functional, effective and still convey a brand's personality. The most important lesson, be it design or human level is that communities help us grow and learn from one another. This is why I'm so inspired by people like Jina, Mina, Diana or Stu who are passionate thought leaders doing so much for the design and development industry. Also Zendaya. What a great time to be alive!

Favorite tools

Figma, Things, SPREADSHEETS!, Notion, Emojis, Moleskine journals and Fujifilm X-H1.

Michelle Tilley

Software Engineer•@BinaryMuse

What drew you to design systems?

Over the decades, my primary expertise has slowly migrated from back-end development to front-end. I've always had an interest in design, and working on design systems allows me to explore that interest while continuing to leverage my expertise in front-end engineering.

Who have you learned from or been inspired by?

The constant shifts in front-end programming over the years and an intrinsic desire to learn have always been a driving factor in my own exploration of computer programming. I'm fortuante to work with a huge number of talented engineers and designers at GitHub, which is very inspiring and very rewarding.

Favorite tools

Vim, Photoshop, Blender, and a good, old-fashioned shell prompt.

Diana Mounter

Design Infrastructure Director•@broccolini

What drew you to design systems?

I was drawn to design systems for many reasons—the opportunity to improve design and development workflow efficiency; the potential benefits well-design systems can bring to the user experience; I like to bring order to chaos and enjoy working at the intersection of design and code. I also love that there is still so much to learn in the field and really enjoy the passion of the community behind design systems.

Who have you learned from or been inspired by?

I don't have room on this webpage to list everyone! SMACSS, The Art and Science of CSS, and Veerle Pieters were some early influences. OOCSS by Nicole Sullivan, CSS Wizardary, Basscss, Tachyons, and BEM influenced my approach to CSS architecture. More recently I've been inspired by Rune Madsen's Programming Design Systems, Compositor, Dan Abramov, Sebastian Markbage, and so many design and code wonder women like Mandy Kerr, Marcy Sutton, Lea Verou, Mina Markham, Sarah Drasner and Jina Anne.

Favorite tools

Hyper, Atom, Figma, MDN, and Quip

Favorite CSS feature

text-decoration: underline wavy

Armağan Ersöz

Software Engineer•@broccolinisoup

What drew you to design systems?

After seeing how reusable component libraries can solve so many UX and DX problems, I continued to dig into the space and started learning about design systems and I was fascinated by the concept since then! I also love focusing on building individual pieces and making them accessible with a systematic approach so that other teams only worry about their domain-specific problems.

Who have you learned from or been inspired by?

Alla Kholmatova’s Design Systems book was one of the first resources I came across in this area and it broadened my understanding greatly. The work Dan Mall, Brad Frost and Nathan Curtis have been doing in the design systems space helped me start putting things in action along with some of my favourite platforms and they are Invision Design Better, IBM Carbon Design System, Smashing Magazine. There are also quite a few individuals I enjoy learning from and some of them are Joshua Comeau, Sara Soueidan, Marcy Sutton, Stephanie Eckles and of course the amazing Primer team 💙

Favorite tools

VS Code, Notion, GitHub, Slack, pen and paper, Hario V60 brewing kit, books

Cameron Dutro

Software Engineer•@camertron

What drew you to design systems?

I'm a big fan of useful abstraction layers, and design systems are generally great examples. Although I've been a programmer for a long time, I enjoy dabbling in design in my free time and love to see systems that make good design achievable (nay, easy!) for non-designers :)

Who have you learned from or been inspired by?

Whenever I need some design inspiration, I head over to Dribbble. When I was a kid, I learned a ton from my mom who was a graphic designer for REI and Eddie Bauer in the 1980s (i.e. before computers).

Favorite tools

VScode, Ruby, Chrome, iTerm 2

Cole Bemis

Design Systems Engineer•@colebemis

What drew you to design systems?

While studying computer science, I developed a passion for design patterns and abstractions. I especially enjoyed learning about programming languages and automata theory. I'm excited about the potential to apply what I've learned to create strong visual languages. I also enjoy building tools that make it easier for designers and developers (like me) to create better user experiences.

Who have you learned from or been inspired by?

Too many to list! I would not be in this field if it weren't for my mom, who introduced me to HTML, CSS and JavaScript at a young age. Tom Falkner, Ben Waldron, Tyler Deitz, Tony Gines, Brett Spradling, Jake Swenson and Sam Ng have all been incredible mentors. And I'm constantly inspired by the work of Brent Jackson, Adam Morse, James, Max Stoiber, Brian Lovin, Bryn Jackson, Steve Schoger, Sara Soueidan, Dan Abramov and so many more.

Favorite tools

CodeSandbox, Figma, GitHub, React, Slack, VS Code

Favorite CSS feature

grid-gap

Javier Díaz

Systems Designer•@edokoa

What drew you to design systems?

I think it happened naturally while working on bigger projects and having to define a source of truth. Producing and mantaining complex products is really difficult if you have to reinvent the wheel going through all the decision-making process again and again, alone or with your teammates.

Who have you learned from or been inspired by?

My biggest source of inspiration have always been video games, I really like how good games craft a small reality and then put a lot of care into making interaction feel satisfactory and self-explanatory. Apart from that, I think there are lots of places inspiration can be drawn from: Music, furniture and interior design, photography, movies...

Favorite tools

Photoshop, Figma, Maya, Unity, VS Code, PocketCasts, CityMapper.

Emily Plummer

Design Systems Engineer•@emplums

What drew you to design systems?

Up until now, I've been mostly working Front End Engineering roles, but I've always been interested in finding something that was a good mix between Front End and Design. Design Systems feels like the perfect hybrid between the two! \n \n I'm also really into accessibility, and I found that having a design system that enforces accessible standards is one of the easiest ways to make progress on getting a team on-boarded with accessibility best practices and getting those practices implemented in production \n \n I'm super excited about our React component library that we've been working on over the past few months!

Who have you learned from or been inspired by?

Some people & projects that have been inspiring to me are: are Nicole Sullivan, Vaidehi Joshi's BaseCS blog &, Mina Markham's slay.sh, Una Kravets, Suz Hinton's talk about accessibility at Dinosaur.js, Marcy Sutton, and Anil Dash.

Favorite tools

Figma, Notion (for taking notes & planning), React

Favorite CSS feature

word-break: break-word

Jessica Kuo

Primer Systems Designer Intern•@jesskuo4

What drew you to design systems?

Studying engineering and design, I enjoy collaborating with designers and engineers from various teams to ensure that the design system remains adaptive in addressing evolving needs. Working on design systems provides a unique opportunity to shape the foundational elements that drive consistency, branding, and cohesive user experiences across an entire organization. In addition, it allows me to learn how to look at our products and experiences at a systems-first, future-proof level.

Who have you learned from or been inspired by?

I'm immensely grateful for the online design community, a nurturing space where designers from all walks of life share their knowledge with the next generation— Steve Jobs, Julie Zhuo, Ethan Eismann and many others. This collective effort continuously inspires my own creative journey to create accessible, beautiful, and seamless experiences.

I want to express my sincerest gratitude to the design team at GitHub, who mentored and supported me in discoverying my passion for design systems: Natalya Shelburne, Katie Langerman, and Cole Bemis. Ultimately, it is the collective wisdom, creativity, and collaborations that fuel my joy in designing.

Favorite tools

Copilot, Figma, Rewatch, GitHub, Youtube, Twitter, Primer.style

Favorite CSS feature

animation: jump 1s infinite

Joshua Shao

Apprentice UI Designer•@jhuashao

What drew you to design systems?

I first found out about design systems through my last internship, which was focused on building up a design system for the New York Times. I kept learning more and more about this emerging field, and really started to grow an affinity for it.

Design Systems seemed to blend all aspects of my interests: Product Design, Front-End Development, Graphic Design, Typography, Illustration, etc. I’m drawn to design systems as it’s a field that welcomes individuals who have too many interests to count, and find themselves at intersections of many different passions.

Who have you learned from or been inspired by?

I draw in a lot of inspiration from so many different facets of my life. I’m really fortunate to come from a diverse set of backgrounds to be able to see parallels that emerge from a variety of industries.

The field of Graphic Design has a tremendous influence on me, and some of the designers and studios I’m inspired by are: Natasha Jen, Barron Webster, Maxime Buschi, Michael Bierut, Eric Hu, Micah Barrett, Draw Down Books, Wei Huang, Josh Schaub, Morcoskey, and David Rudnik. I’ve always been inspired by those who are experimenting at the intersection of design and technology: Tristan Harris, Brad Frost, Studio No-Plans, Marie Otsuka, Ben Wilkins, Jon Gold, Bret Victor, and Chris Novello. I also love typography, and have a lot of admiration for type-designers and foundries: Colophon Foundry, Kris Sowersby (Klim Type), Matthew Carter, Richard Lipton, Lucas Sharp, Grilli Type, and James Edmondson (OHnotypeco). There’s so many more people that I’ve learned and drawn inspiration from to mention and praise, so feel free to reach out! I’d love to share and discuss. ❤️

Favorite tools

VScode, Figma, Adobe Creative Suite, Zero-Sugar Redbull

Favorite CSS feature

align-items: center;

Joel Hawksley

Software Engineer•@joelhawksley

What drew you to design systems?

While working in numerous Rails codebases over the years, I kept seeing the same structural issues in the view layer as applications grew in size. I came up with an idea to bring component-driven design patterns to Rails, and am thrilled to be pursuing it for the purpose of building out our design systems at GitHub.

Who have you learned from or been inspired by?

My mom is a professor in visual communication, so I’ve been in the design world since before I could walk. I learned how to be a software engineer from my friend Aaron Snyder, who took me as his apprentice after I left the newspaper industry. These days I learn a lot from my coworkers, especially tenderlove and seejohnrun.

Favorite tools

VS Code, Todoist, Spotify

Josep Martins

Systems Designer•@josepmartins

What drew you to design systems?

It naturally occurred while working on startup projects with limited resources, striving to enhance our productivity while avoiding repeated activities and inconsistent UI. Learning about OOCSS, SMACSS, or BEM methodologies pushed and drew me in the direction of a system thinking strategy.

Who have you learned from or been inspired by?

From all the co-workers and friends I’ve been lucky to work with: Hayk An, Victoria Nikitina, Daniel Guillan, Javier Sanchez, and from all of the folks who share their knowledge in the design and development space: Lea Verou, Harry Roberts, Sara Soueidan, Benjamin de Cock, and Brent Jackson to name a few.

Favorite tools

VS Code, Notes, Figma, GitHub, Vercel, Spotify

Josh Bowden

Primer Systems Designer Intern•@JoshBowdenConcepts

What drew you to design systems?

Since the beginning of my software career I have heard the common phrase "Don't repeat yourself" or DRY programming as some people might know it. In following this practice I found myself designing React components to be reused. This interest in reusable code paired with my fascination with design and usability led me to design systems.

Who have you learned from or been inspired by?

Most of the influential inspiration has been from my co-workers at each of the places I have worked at over the years. The amount of information that I have collectively gained from them is incalculable.\n\nIn the accessibility space I have learned quite a bit from Derek Featherstone. Orienting your mind to look through a lens of more inclusive design has changed my perspective on both design and engineering.\n\nMy favorite design system podcast over the years has been designsystemspodcast. Not only do they have really interesting takes on different companies navigating the design system space, but they are good at giving useful information that can be directly applied to your own organization.

Favorite tools

VSCode, GitHub, Figma, Spotify, Daily Dev

Favorite CSS feature

grid-template-areas

Julius Yanik

Systems Designer•@juliusschaeper

What drew you to design systems?

Being able to focus on the key elements of design, form, color and typography.

Who have you learned from or been inspired by?

Having an education in industrial design, the Bauhaus design philosophy and Dieter Rams inspired me a lot. Everything I know about digital product design I learned at Wunderlist, whose design team was very inspiring.

Favorite tools

Remarkable tablet, Figma, Origami, Glyphs, GitHubs internal color tool

Favorite CSS feature

grid-template-areas: "header header header" "footer footer footer"

Keith Cirkel

Software Engineer•@keithamus

What drew you to design systems?

I believe UI engineering is an incredibly deep and complex discipline that deserves equal prominence alongside other platform and infrastructure teams; a design system is key to scaling a UI to meet the demands of our users. I think the work of a Design System intersects the concerns of users and colleagues more than most other teams.

Who have you learned from or been inspired by?

I'm inspired by art movements like Bauhaus, and the work of Mies van der Rohe, Dame Zaha Hadid, Frank Lloyd Wright. I enjoy the graphic design of Saul Bass. Don Norman's approach to user interfaces inspires me. The software principles of Doug McIlroy, Edsger Dijkstra, Barbara Liskov, Ken Thomson. I'm inspired by the tireless work Sir David Attenborough and Steve & Robert Irwin do to show us the power and beauty of nature. Of course I would not be working in this industry without the work of Tim Berners-Lee, Håkon Wium Lie, Chris Lilley.

Favorite tools

GitHub, neovim, Firefox

Favorite CSS feature

float: left

Shawn Allen

Systems Designer•@shawnbot

What drew you to design systems?

I worked in data visualization and map-making for most of my career, and solving design problems with data is my jam. To me there's something uniquely exciting about making a thing that can take complicated and/or unexpected input and, with no human intervention, reduce it to something visually comprehensible—and hopefully interesting!

Who have you learned from or been inspired by?

Anyone who has ever contributed to A List Apart or posted to the webdesign-l mailing list between 1999 and 2005. The CSS Zen Garden was hugely inspirational for me, along with web standards pioneers like Eric Meyer, Mark Pilgrim, and Jeff Zeldman. Jina is one of the hardest-working people in design systems, and her leadership in the community is a tremendous inspiration. I learned everything I know about SVG from Sara Soueidan, and everything I could hope to know about CSS Grid from Rachel Andrew and Jen Simmons. If you want to learn about web components, follow Monica Dinculescu and Mu-An Chiou.

Favorite tools

Vim, Things, Chrome DevTools, curl

Favorite CSS feature

box-sizing: border-box

Siddharth Kshetrapal

Software Engineer•@siddharthkp

What drew you to design systems?

Through pure frustration of “there has to be a better way”, I wandered into the world of design systems and it just clicked! Found so many talented folks who worked on the intersection of design and development roles (used to be called "hybrids", but that might be out of fashion). Bought into the idea of defining a common language for designers and developers, still chasing that dream :)

Who have you learned from or been inspired by?

People I have worked with over the years ♥️ and the people I’ve looked up to — Nicole Sullivan, Jina Anne, Jacob Thornton, Brent Jackson, Sunil Pai, Sarah Drasner, Addy Osmani and my sister!

Favorite tools

Devtools, Figma, iA Writer, GitHub, CodeSandbox, Hyper, Vercel, Kap, Muji pens!

Simon Lüthi

Systems Designer•@simurai

What drew you to design systems?

Ok, this might sound weird, but I really enjoy looking at UIs. There is something satisfying, seeing a bunch of components getting thrown on a page that fit well together, forming a balanced interface for users to interact with. I also enjoy building UIs and helping others to do the same.

Who have you learned from or been inspired by?

Thinking back, seeing the CSS Zen Garden was really inspiring. Also the CSS "demo scene" found in places like CodePen is nuts. Admittedly, not always practical, but fun to check out.

I also got inspired and learned a lot from methodologies like OOCSS, SMACSS, BEM, SUIT and nowadays CSS-in-JS. The "how to organize CSS" is a challenging, but also interesting problem to solve.

Favorite tools

DevTools, Atom, Figma, Sketch, iA Writer, LICEcap, Things, coffee, headphones.

Favorite CSS feature

fill: currentColor;

Vinicius Depizzol

Systems Designer•@vdepizzol

What drew you to design systems?

Throughout the various roles I’ve had in product design, creating good and cohesive experiences for people was always what truly motivated me to be in this area. As I started working in larger projects, style guides, design patterns and design systems became essential to scale cohesion, and ultimately part of my life.

Who have you learned from or been inspired by?

I’ve been lucky to encounter and collaborate with immensely talented people where I’ve been — that has shaped me more than I can imagine. Over the years, stumbling upon Bruno Bergher, Lulu LaMer, Andrew Branch, among many many others, have shown me people who are eager to learn, and above all open to being wrong (even if they’re right most of the time). \n \n I like how Yuval Noah Harari has helped me (and an entire generation) to see the big picture, and I have always been inspired by designers who spread beyond their areas like Frank Chimero and Rasmus Andersson do.

Favorite tools

Pen and paper, Figma, photography camera

Inayaili León

Design Producer•@yaili

What drew you to design systems?

I like it when things around me are organized. I like writing, and the process of refining an idea into words. I like guidelines, style guides, patterns, HTML, and CSS. I like to have several projects on at once. I like planning. I like to work smart, not hard. When you add all of these you get… design systems!

Who have you learned from or been inspired by?

More than anything, the people I’ve worked with over the years. I learned something from everyone: being generous with my knowledge, being serious about research, work discipline, balancing family life and work, speaking up, picking my battles, and everything good that I know. Also: the conversations and connections I made during the early years of Design Twitter — still going strong.

Favorite tools

Too many! Things, Simplenote, iA Writer, Dictionary, VS Code, xScope, notebooks, Pinboard, Overcast, spreadsheets, and Earl Grey.

Zain Khoja

Systems Designer Intern•@zainkho

What drew you to design systems?

I love organization and lists. I have a lists for things from movies to boba tea orders. I like to bring this into my design work as well, creating components and cohesiveness across platforms to make it easier for people to create great products.

Who have you learned from or been inspired by?

When I first began learning about design, I was inspired by the people who contributed back to the community by teaching and opening up to students. Resources like Students Who Design and Design Details helped me figure out how I wanted to make a positive impact in tech.

More recently, I've been inspired by design agencies and companies that are testing the boundaries of design outside of what is accepted as 'common pratice'. I enjoy seeing unique animation and motion used to convey information, emotion, and storytelling.

Favorite tools

Sketch, Figma, Atom, Dropbox Paper, Twitter, Ping Pong, Ukulele

Favorite CSS feature

fill: currentColor;