Sep 2025
It's not just for big companies. A well-built design system saves time, prevents inconsistencies and stops Ludmi and Juli from pulling their hair out.
If you think a design system is only for companies like Google or Airbnb, let me tell you: Ludmi implemented one for a 3-person startup and the impact was immediate. It doesn't need to be complex: it just needs to exist.
A design system, in its most basic form, is a set of rules and reusable components. Defined colour palette, typography with clear hierarchies, buttons that always look the same, consistent spacing. Nothing revolutionary, but it's surprising how many brands don't have one. Juli suffers particularly when she has to create graphic pieces for a brand that doesn't even have its own colours defined.
The problem of not having one is cumulative. Today Ludmi uses a blue. Tomorrow, someone on the client's team grabs another "similar" blue for an Instagram post. Next month, the landing page has a third blue. In six months, the brand looks like a visual Frankenstein. We've seen it too many times.
Our approach: we start with what Ludmi calls a "mini design system". It's 4 things: colour tokens (3-5 colours with variants), typographic scale (3 sizes for web), basic components (buttons, cards, forms) and spacing rules. In Figma, this is built in one day. Michael then translates it to code with Tailwind, and from that moment everything designed and developed comes from the same foundation.
The benefit clients value most isn't the visual one: it's speed. When there's a system, designing a new landing doesn't take a week, it takes two days. Ludmi and Juli already have the components, style decisions are already made. They focus on strategy and content, not choosing colours. And Michael implements faster because the components already exist in code.
And the best part: it scales. When the brand grows and needs an app, a dashboard, videos (that's where Susi comes in with the system's assets) or printed material, the design system already has the foundations. Nothing needs reinventing. It's an investment that pays for itself within the first quarter.