If you’re a company building a suite of products or a young team that’s trying to set up for faster output, having a design system is almost a necessity.

On the customer-facing side, design systems have been proven to help companies unify their products and strengthen their brand. On the team's side, they cut down development time tremendously, help define a company standard, improve collaboration, and serve as a single source of truth for the team. As of 2020, more than 65% of the top companies surveyed in America admitted to using one. That figure has kept on growing since then.

So, what’s a Design System?

At its core, a design system is a set of guidelines, design tokens, and reusable code components that help you build apps quickly. The best design systems are able to offer direction to the designers and developers, on when and how to use components within your digital products.

When creating your company’s design system, it’s important to benchmark it against some of the greats. This helps you ensure what your team creates is up to the global standard, and would be worth the time investment.

Here are 4 awesome design systems we love at DULA Studio, and why we love them so much:

Atlassian Design System

If you’re an engineer, product manager, or designer, then you’ve most likely heard about Jira. And Trello. And Confluence.

Atlassian created a design system that covers guidelines for everything from branding to illustrations, to how they write copy. This system is used to direct everything the company puts out - including their website, marketing assets, and their 19 products!

What we love most about ADS is its consistency. The buttons, dropdowns and tables all look like they were made in the same family, and this translates very well into all Atlassian’s products. They carefully created UI components that can be used for really technical work, but look so good.

They also do well to fully document guidelines, usage, and code snippets for every single element where necessary on a really well-designed website. So whether you’re a designer, developer, or copywriter, you can find value here.

Check it out here: https://atlassian.design

UK Government design system

If you’ve ever applied for a UK visa, then you’ve noticed that all the pages look alike. That’s because the UK government was one of the first governments to create a system for all government-related sites.

Although it’s much more serious than Atlassian’s system, it's equally as detailed. We especially like it because it’s super focused on accessibility. The buttons are large, the texts are legible, and the contrasts are great, to allow everyone to find their way around government sites.

Check it out here: https://design-system.service.gov.uk

Carbon by IBM

There are very few design systems that have as many applications as IBM’s Carbon. From MRI software, to trading products, to tools being used to monitor satellites, IBM is developing solutions that matter to the world. And that’s why we think Carbon is so great.

We’ve seen a lot of detailed design systems, but there are very few that are as great as Carbon. It goes beyond just brand elements & UI components, to document other things like how motion should work, and how accessibility should be considered.

But more than these, we especially love the Carbon design system because it has the largest documentation of graphs & charts, and it documents all its component guidelines in four different themes so you know how to use it in light mode and dark mode.

Check it out here: https://carbondesignsystem.com

Material Design by Google

If you’ve ever designed for mobile phones, or you’ve ever used any of Google’s products, then you have definitely come across Google’s Material Design System.

Material Design is Google’s open-source system that influences all of Google’s products and also serves as the baseline for most products (and design systems) being built for Android to date.

It is extremely detailed and designed in such a way that lets teams customize it and make it theirs. It also has a robust library of fonts and icons that you can’t not love.

Check it out here: https://m3.material.io

In conclusion, design systems play a crucial role in unifying products, improving collaboration, and streamlining development processes. By benchmarking against renowned design systems like Atlassian, UK Government, Carbon by IBM, and Material Design by Google, teams can ensure they meet global standards and create exceptional digital experiences. Whether you're a designer, developer, or copywriter, these design systems offer valuable resources and guidelines. Remember, putting together a design system is no easy task, but with the right team and inspiration, you can create something remarkable. We’re excited to see what you create!

Oh, by the way! Don't forget to reach out to us to create your company's design system.