Design system

A design system is the shared library of design tokens, components, patterns and standards a team agrees on for how their product looks, behaves and feels. It lives in two places at once — as reusable components in design tools like Figma, and as a coded component library — kept in sync through tooling.

It's not the same as a component library (which is one part of it) or brand guidelines (which sit upstream). For the practical build, see our guide on how to create a design system; for the business case, how design systems reduce cost and improve team efficiency. Reference systems worth studying: Material, Carbon, Polaris.

Related: Design tokens · Component library · Atomic design · Brand guidelines