Design Systems Handbook
By Marco Suarez, Jina Anne, Katie Sylor-Miller, Diana Mounter, and Roy Stanfield
The Design Systems Handbook is a practical guide to building and scaling design systems that improve consistency, speed, and collaboration across teams. Written by leading experts in design and engineering from Etsy, Square, Github, Shopify, and Microsoft, it makes the case for moving beyond bespoke design work toward reusable, component-based systems guided by clear standards. Readers will learn how design systems reduce design debt, improve usability, and allow teams to prototype, iterate, and ship faster.
The book features real-world examples from companies like Google (Material Design), Shopify (Polaris), Salesforce (Lightning Design System), and LinkedIn, highlighting different team models and implementation strategies. It also covers key topics like accessibility, documentation, and testing. Whether you’re just starting out or refining an existing system, this book provides clear, actionable guidance for building systems that scale.
Length: 144 pages
Available in PDF and epub formats, free for Design Better Premium subscribers
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What’s in Design Systems Handbook
Introducing design systems
Marco Suarez (Etsy) covers why design systems are essential for scaling design, reducing inconsistency, and accelerating product development.
Designing your design system
Jina Anne (Microsoft) explains how to assemble the right team, define your visual language, and structure your system for flexibility and reuse.
Building your design system
Katie Sylor-Miller (Square) shares practical advice on writing modular, accessible, and maintainable code to bring your system to life.
Putting your design system into practice
Diana Mounter (Github) lays out how to integrate your system into daily workflows, drive adoption, and empower teams without limiting creativity.
Expanding your design system
Marco Suarez (Etsy) outlines how to evolve your system over time with governance, tooling, and cross-team collaboration at scale.
The future of design systems
Roy Stanfield (Shopify) explores how design tokens, cross-platform consistency, and emerging tools are shaping the next generation of design systems.
Appendix
A curated list of resources, tools, and further reading to help you dive deeper into the craft and practice of systemized design.
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When you become a Premium subscriber, not only will you get Design Systems Handbook, you’ll also get our entire library of books that cover a range of essential topics and are written by top industry experts.
Design Systems Handbook: Learn to design, deploy, and drive adoption of a design system in your organization with this book written by experts from Github, Salesforce, Pinterest, Etsy, and Shopify.
Design Thinking Handbook: informed by the Stanford methodology, this book provides the foundation for innovation and product design exploration.
Designing for Emotion: Learn how to design products that inspire trust, overcome user fears, and create lasting impressions with this classic that’s inspired teams at The White House, Intuit, Google, and more.
DesignOps Handbook: Written by DesignOps pioneers, this book is the essential guide to improving your team’s core operations so designers can focus on what they love most—design.
Principles of Product Design: There is a proven recipe for making great products, and this book lays it all out with real-world examples of the best design teams.
About the authors
Marco Suarez
Marco Suarez has helped shape the visual language, design systems, and customer experiences of companies like Etsy and Mailchimp. His work extends beyond design to influence internal processes that scale across organizations. He is also the co-founder of Methodical Coffee.
Jina Anne
Jina Anne is a leading advocate for design systems, having contributed to the evolution of systems at Amazon, Salesforce, Asana, and Google. Her work has shaped foundational concepts such as design tokens. She is also the co-founder of the Clarity Conference.
Katie Sylor-Miller
Katie Sylor-Miller is Principal Engineer and Web Tech Lead at Square, and was formerly Frontend Architect at Etsy. She specializes in design systems, web performance, accessibility, and frontend infrastructure, and is passionate about the craft of Staff Engineering. As an invited expert on the W3C Web Performance Working Group, she helps guide browser development to improve Web Performance APIs.
Diana Mounter
Diana Mounter is Head of Design at GitHub. Her approach blends systems thinking, inclusive design, and the perspective of code as a material in the design process.
Roy Stanfield
Roy Stanfield has played a pivotal role in developing design systems at Airbnb and Etsy. He currently serves as Principal Product Designer at Shopify.
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