Design System
Brainly Multidimensional
Design System ”Pencil”.
From zero to full-blown
world-class product, recognized by the industry.
Role: Creator and first design IC, lead for design system team and IxD Product Design Domain, team manager for the diverse team of designers and engineers.
Public link to the Pencil: design.brainly.com 🔗
01.Situation
Developers struggled to align the product with designers mock-ups, causing frustration and confusion among teams and stakeholders. No easy way to access design resources for our partners.
02.Task
I proactively pioneered design system as an individual contributor, with limited resources in the early stages of design systems. I’ve build it from scratch to world-class level leading a top-tier team.
03.Actions
2017. Workshops with all designers and developers to identify pain-points.
Analysis of the problems.
2019. Set up Interaction/Product Design domain at Brainly, with a focus on product design quality and community building among distributed teams.
2018. Co-created the tool that translated HTML code from Style Guide to Sketch Libraries (HTML-Sketchaap). Later on, a similar tool but for Figma (Dreams).
2021. Expanded core Design System Team to structure with managers, leads, product / brand / marketing / motion / ux motion designers, and engineers.
2018. Led the creation of Brainly Design Principles. Later on documented in Design System. Read the principles 🔗
2021. Created the holistic vision and strategy for product design with product / brand / motion / ux motion design leads to guide user experience by example in effective usage of design principles and guidelines. Read Case Study 🔗
2017. Built a strategy for design system prioritizing shared language and connection between Product & Brand & Marketing.
04.Results
Taking design at Brainly and collaboration between designers and engineers to the next level. Increased design quality, efficiency, and impact across the company.
Used by almost everybody with overwhelmingly positive feedback in DS users research.
Successfully Integrated Product, Brand, and Marketing to establish a cohesive omni-channel experience through design language and enhanced collaboration.
The public version of Pencil has become an industry benchmark and a valuable employer branding tool, attracting top talent to the company.
Helped many teams in the world, and landed on the bridging of design and development timeline, alongside Airbnb, Webflow, Seek, and Google.
~$2M
Saved in internal cost.
Based on annual design system
ROI estimates.
05.Bonus
Watch my Figma Schema Talk showcasing the details of Multidimensional Design System creation at Brainly.
Best Talk of The Year Winner at Design System Awards 2023 🏆