What an amazing day at #config2020! Thanks so much to @nlevin, @torihinn, @mwichary, @tonigemayel, @jenny_wen, @negativespaceca, et al @figmadesign for putting on such a great event.
I spoke about naming design systems, the talk I wish had existed when I was starting out.
I spoke about naming design systems, the talk I wish had existed when I was starting out.
In 2017, when I was first researching this problem, I learned there were two distinct approaches to naming design systems: utilitarian design systems names and fun design systems names.
Within the fun design systems names, I noticed there were two different subsets: what I think of as aspirational names and then also punny names.
Please note that a lot of the lists that follow are crowd-sourced, so your mileage may vary. Some companies may have retired these systems, renamed them, or have multiple design systems. Anyway...
Utilitarian design systems names often have the name of the company in it, often have the words design or system, often make a specific reference to the interface itself or the word language.
In the aspirational category, we see a lot of space names, scientific names, academic names or names around creating—things you might use to build or paint or design.
The key thing about most of the names in this category is that they aren’t necessarily specific to the company.
The key thing about most of the names in this category is that they aren’t necessarily specific to the company.
Finally, there are punny systems names: names that wink at the name of the company, its culture or the industry it's in.
I think it’s important to note here that a lot of the publicly available design systems fall into the second two categories: aspirational names and punny names. If you’re Googling around for design systems naming inspiration, these types of names come up a lot.
There’s a lot more to say about naming design systems (in the talk, I go into detail about how we switched from one approach to the other at Credit Karma), but for now, if you’re thinking about how to name your own design system, here are some things to consider.
When can a utilitarian design system name make sense?
✅ When the company is still building its design muscle
✅ When the size of the team using the system is growing rapidly
✅ When the size of the team maintaining the system is very small
✅ When the company is still building its design muscle
✅ When the size of the team using the system is growing rapidly
✅ When the size of the team maintaining the system is very small
When can a fun design system name make sense?
✅ When the system is for both internal employees and external users
✅ When the system is intended to be published publicly, possibly for recruiting
✅ When design (or internal branding) is a strong part of the company’s DNA
✅ When the system is for both internal employees and external users
✅ When the system is intended to be published publicly, possibly for recruiting
✅ When design (or internal branding) is a strong part of the company’s DNA
Again, fun names are really common approaches for public systems, but what works for a mature and public design system may not scale down well to a system that’s just starting out.
When your system is new or small, your bandwidth is an extremely limited resource and you may not have the luxury of spending lots of time on system branding.
Of course, the culture of each company plays a huge role in this decision and there is no one-size-fits-all answer or method that works for everyone.
In her book Design Systems, @craftui says: “Without a shared language, a group of people can’t creative effectively together.”
Whatever approach you take to naming your design system, if you can work the name into the language of your team, you’ll be on the right track.
Whatever approach you take to naming your design system, if you can work the name into the language of your team, you’ll be on the right track.
@craftui Update: folks who've worked on some of the systems mentioned above are sharing really fun backstory on their systems names. Going to capture those here moving forward!
@craftui @jordanstaniscia @Jeroen_Ransijn Thanks @wilsonminer for sharing more about the Facebook system:
@craftui @jordanstaniscia @Jeroen_Ransijn @wilsonminer Here @jina shared more context about Lightning Design System:
@craftui @jordanstaniscia @Jeroen_Ransijn @wilsonminer @jina Here @craftui shared more context about Solar Design System:
@craftui @jordanstaniscia @Jeroen_Ransijn @wilsonminer @jina Here @StuRobson shared more context about EMBL Visual Framework:
