There's also free shipping in the U.S. if you'd prefer the paperback, from Black Friday through Cyber Monday!

Thanks! :) Glad you like the website too. If you were into Adobe Portfolio, you might like these case study insights into how it was made: https://roomfive.net/adobe-portfolio/

Good question! Not so specifically, but I do go into some detail of process (success and failure) and lessons learned of a couple of products I've worked on. The book is all based on experience. So it's one long war story!! lol. Joking, not joking ;) But seriously, there are a good few examples given from my time working with designers and developers, what we did, how it worked, what I would do differently, etc. And I mix in a bunch of inspiration from other teams doing great work. On war stories though: yeah, it gets 'real'. I think a lot of the case studies you read on Medium are a rosy perspective of a perfect project — but anyone who's worked in-house knows there's no way that's true. It did go wrong. There are difficult people, stakeholders, legacy problems, office politics, etc. I've written about all of that, and how to navigate it. I hope that helps :)

...Suuuuuuper popular question, then.... Sigh

Thanks, great to hear :) Make sure to register on the website, and I'll let you know when it's available!

Hey, Steve. Alla wrote a great book! My work is even featured in her book. My book, of course, will be different so far as writing style and personality. And each author's different experiences in the field will bring something different also. We've both worked at very different companies (in size, culture, and continents), and we've taken different roles too. I like to think my book uses 'simpler' language to others out there — not just Alla's, but Atomic Design, for example, and other articles on the subject. It's down to earth, steeped with experience and learning experiences, and different approaches. In general, it's very practical — it gives actionable advice and steps. It's unique in that it focusses also on the role of brand in system design. The name 'Laying the Foundations' references both a simple design system model I present in the book, and also creating digital brand guidelines that design systems are built upon. This book is also 2 years further on in time (2017 > 2019) — so it uses more recent examples. I hope that helped :)

I am writing a book about system design and digital brand guidelines! I'm well into the writing process, and I aim to go to print (and eBook) later this year. Learn more and register via the link.

I use Craft Library. This will help a lot with colours and symbols. Their management of text styles is not good, but I trust it will improve. I think the most important thing is not just how you share these assets, but how organised and well you set up your UI components (that your team share). Nested symbols is the key to this, for easy/quick access to all your design systems components and states — then use whichever plugin (Craft, Brand.ai etc) you prefer from the options to distribute/maintain latest versions with the team. I wrote a tutorial that might help: https://medium.com/@andrewcouldwell/harness-the-power-of-symbols-204448baaef3

I created a little 'behind the scenes' resource on how I set up a responsive design system for a team of designers to use in Sketch. Also included is a small insight into the documentation. It includes two downloads featuring one of the patterns in the system.

The Sketch download demos a responsive UI, featuring a small subset of form elements and text styles. If you select the text input symbols you'll see that you can change their state, or switch to a different type of input, retaining all your label and data values. It's only the very tip of the iceberg, but I hope it gives some insight into the potential of the full system in Sketch.

There is also a PDF download featuring a small excerpt from the documentation for the pattern featured in the Sketch demo.

I hope it helps :)

Sharing this case study article I wrote about creating and documenting a design system. It shares insight into our process, product design, the tools we used to create and implement the system, and also how we document and share the system with our team. Hope you find it interesting :)