Building Design Systems That Scale

Design systems are more than component libraries. They're shared languages that bridge design and engineering, enabling teams to build consistent, accessible, and beautiful products at scale.

After leading the development of Meridian — a design system serving five product teams — here's what I've learned about building systems that actually get adopted.

Start With Tokens, Not Components

The temptation is to jump straight into building a Button component. Resist it. Start with your design tokens: colors, spacing, typography, and elevation. These are the atoms that everything else is built from.

// tokens/colors.ts
export const colors = {
  primary: {
    50: '#f5f3ff',
    100: '#ede9fe',
    500: '#7c3aed',
    600: '#6d28d9',
    900: '#4c1d95',
  },
  // ...
} as const;

Tokens create a shared vocabulary. When a designer says "primary-500," engineers know exactly what that means.

Composition Over Configuration

The best components are composable, not configurable. Instead of a Button with 15 props, build primitives that compose together.

<Button variant="primary" size="lg">
  <Button.Icon>
    <ArrowRight />
  </Button.Icon>
  Get Started
</Button>

Governance Matters

A design system without governance is just a collection of components. Establish:

• Contribution guidelines — how do new components get added?
• Deprecation policies — how do you sunset old patterns?
• Review processes — who approves changes?

The system only works if everyone trusts it, and trust comes from clear processes.

Measure Adoption

You can't improve what you don't measure. Track:

• Component usage across products
• Design-to-development handoff time
• Accessibility audit scores
• Developer satisfaction surveys

These metrics tell you whether your system is actually helping.

The Takeaway

Design systems are products, not projects. They need product thinking: user research (your users are designers and developers), roadmaps, iteration cycles, and long-term investment. Treat them accordingly, and they'll pay dividends across your entire organization.