Software teams are operating in an environment where the job description changes every two months. As agentic AI moves from novelty to real engineering capability, the assumptions that have held enterprise software together — long SaaS contracts, stable teams, predictable agile rhythms — are starting to bend. In this episode of Patterns, Chris Strahl talks with engineering leader Alex Wilson about what it actually takes to bring AI into a large, regulated organization, and how the math behind building, buying, and structuring teams is shifting underneath everyone at once.

Drawing on his work leading the design system at T. Rowe Price and driving AI activation across the firm, Alex explains how agentic capabilities are reshaping build-vs-buy, the shape of teams, and how engineering leaders need to show up. The conversation moves from the cultural pressure to be "AI-native" to the practical questions of modular architecture, smaller delivery pods, and why the best leaders are now building alongside their teams.

We'll explore:

• Why "build vs. buy" looks different when agents can build and maintain internal tools, and how that's pushing companies to shorten SaaS contracts and treat vendor software as a stop-gap
• How teams are shifting from large pods running classic agile toward smaller groups of "big gear" and "small clockwork" builders with compressed spike-to-ship cycles
• Why modular, replaceable architecture is becoming a strategic requirement as SaaS feels less permanent and internal builds become more viable
• How engineering leaders set the tone by adopting AI tools themselves — treating personal experimentation as a path back into the company's roadmap

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Guest

Alex Wilson is an engineering leader focused on design systems and AI-enabled product development. He leads Beacon, T. Rowe Price’s design system, driving broad adoption across the firm and generating more than $15 million in design and development cost avoidance.

He works at the intersection of design, platform architecture, and AI, where he focuses on improving how digital products are built and evolve at enterprise scale. From this perspective, he explores how intelligent systems can enable more adaptive, context-aware experiences while maintaining consistency and design integrity. He also defines technical strategy around agentic workflows that enable teams to build in new ways.

Beyond his work at T. Rowe Price, he is an active voice in both the engineering and design communities, speaking at industry conferences, mentoring leaders across disciplines, and contributing to conversations on AI-driven product development, design systems, and the future of software delivery.

Host

Chris Strahl is the host of the Patterns podcast and a pioneer in modern digital product design and development. As the co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, he is a leading voice on how AI can fundamentally reshape the way teams design, build, and deliver digital products with a human-centered approach.

Sponsor

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Digital products no longer exist as standalone apps. They live inside complex ecosystems of interfaces, AI systems, legacy infrastructure, and workflows that all have to work together. In this episode of Patterns, Chris Strahl talks with product design leader Andi Rusu about what it takes to design reliable digital experiences in environments where multiple systems—and increasingly AI—are shaping how products behave.

Drawing on experience at Disney, Sonos, Axon, and Microsoft, Andi explains why trust is becoming the central design challenge in modern product development. As AI becomes embedded in digital products, the job of design expands beyond crafting interfaces to shaping how complex systems behave, how decisions are made, and how users understand what’s happening behind the scenes. The conversation explores how designers can balance abstraction and transparency, when friction actually improves the experience, and why human judgment still plays a critical role in building trustworthy AI-powered products.

We’ll explore:

• Why modern digital products behave more like ecosystems than individual apps, and how fragmentation across systems creates new design challenges for product teams
• How AI is becoming a new layer inside product development, influencing how workflows, decisions, and automation shape the user experience
• Why trust becomes harder to maintain in AI-driven products, especially when systems make decisions users cannot see or easily understand
• Why human judgment still matters in AI-powered design, and how designers balance abstraction, transparency, and intentional friction to create reliable user experiences

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Guest

Andi Rusu is a product design and research leader focused on creating user-centered experiences across complex product ecosystems. He has led design teams and initiatives at Disney, Axon, Sonos, Microsoft, and Deloitte, helping organizations deliver impactful digital products at scale. He has also taught experience design at Cornish College of the Arts, the University of Washington, and the School of Visual Concepts.

Hostt

Chris Strahl is the host of the Patterns podcast and a pioneer in modern digital product design and development. As the co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, he is a leading voice on how AI can fundamentally reshape the way teams design, build, and deliver digital products with a human-centered approach

Sponsor

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

The Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines merger came with physical and regulatory deadlines that dictated an inflexible 10-month delivery window for digital and design work. With the timeline tied to real-world change, combined design, product, and engineering teams had to build and ship alongside a transformation that was already in motion.

Chris Strahl talks with Noelle Lansford and Forrest Akemann about what it took to deliver a multi-brand experience under that pressure, while respecting the long histories and cultural significance of two iconic airline brands. From foundational decisions around color, typography, and tokens to close collaboration across teams, this conversation offers a realistic look at how systems work gets done when speed is non-negotiable and the stakes are real.

We'll explore:

• What changes when deadlines are tied to physical and regulatory reality?
• Why is merger-driven multi-brand work harder than planned multi-brand?
• How do shared foundations like color, typography, and tokens enable teams to move faster together?

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Guest

Noelle Lansford began her career as an engineer on design system teams before transitioning into design, where she discovered her passion for connecting the technical and human sides of digital product creation. Today, as the founder of Shep, a design systems consultancy that partners with organizations from early-stage startups to Fortune 5 companies, Noelle helps bridge the gap between design, engineering, and business strategy. Her work focuses on creating systems that balance structure with flexibility, prioritize people over process, and deliver lasting business value instead of chasing perfection.

Forrest Akemann is a design systems lead at Hawaiian Airlines, where he has worked since 2019 across product design and design systems. He played a key role in building Hawaiian’s design system and later helped lead the system work through the Alaska–Hawaiian merger, focusing on multi-brand foundations, theming, and system adoption.

Hostt

Chris Strahl is the host of the Patterns podcast and a pioneer in modern digital product design and development. As the co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, he is a leading voice on how AI can fundamentally reshape the way teams design, build, and deliver digital products with a human-centered approach

Sponsor

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

In the first episode of Patterns, Chris Strahl sits down with Dave Brown, design leader at Qualtrics, to explore what modern systems thinking looks like in an AI-driven product landscape. Moving beyond traditional notions of software design, the conversation reframes product creation as a shift from a single golden path toward a world where every experience is effectively an edge case. Together, they unpack why context, not features, is becoming the primary design material and how AI is forcing teams to rethink how systems are structured, constrained, and evolved.

Drawing on his experience leading AI and ML initiatives at AWS and now at Qualtrics, Dave explores how designers and builders can shape better outcomes by designing for context, learning loops, and adaptability. The discussion spans designing for AI versus designing with AI, the rise of compound engineering, and the collapse of rigid boundaries between design, product, and engineering. Rather than shipping static features, the future points toward systems that learn continuously, respond in real time, and improve through every interaction.

Key takeaways

• Context is the core design challenge of 2026, shaping how AI systems behave, adapt, and deliver value.
• Product systems are moving from golden paths to infinite edge cases, driven by personalization and real-time decision making.
• Designing for AI means creating learning loops, where systems improve through continuous feedback rather than static rules.
• Compound engineering reframes software creation around systems that get smarter over time, collapsing traditional role boundaries.

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Guest

Dave Brown is a design leader at Qualtrics, where he focuses on AI initiatives and the evolution of the company’s design system. Previously, he spent nearly a decade at Amazon, including six years leading design for AI and machine learning services at AWS. His work centers on building adaptive, scalable product systems, with a particular interest in context, learning loops, and how teams can design systems that get smarter over time.

Host

Chris Stroll is the host of the Patterns podcast and a pioneer in modern digital product design and development. As the co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, he is a leading voice on how AI can fundamentally reshape the way teams design, build, and deliver digital products with a human-centered approach

As AI compresses the distance between idea and execution, the abstractions that once made design tools necessary are becoming points of friction. In this conversation, Knapsack leaders Chris Strahl, Evan Lovely, and Robin Cannon make the case that the future of digital production starts in the medium products actually ship in, code. They unpack why design systems are infrastructure, not artifacts, how context becomes the critical input for enterprise AI, and why creating directly in code unlocks faster iteration with higher fidelity. This shift changes who gets to create, how teams work together, and what it means to scale ideas instead of just processes.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

• AI as an enabler of human creativity, not a replacement
• Why prototype-first workflows are breaking down
• How the Intelligent Product Engine supports real product creation
• What it looks like for designers, developers, and product teams to build, refine, and ship together

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Guest

Evan Lovely is the co-founder and CTO of Knapsack

Robin Cannon is the Head of Product at Knapsack

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on LinkedIn.

Sponsor

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

How do teams turn accessibility from individual effort into system wide practice? Chris talks with Anna Thielke, founder and CEO of Mantis and Company, to find out. They explore why representation on system teams leads to better standards, how designing for the edges strengthens products for everyone, and what it takes for accessibility work to spread across large organizations in a sustainable way. Anna also shares how lived experience shapes her perspective and why accessibility becomes more effective when teams view it as shared responsibility rather than a late stage requirement.

Key Takeaways

• Design systems provide the structure needed to scale accessibility across teams.
• Representation on system teams shapes the standards that reach every product.
• Designing for the edges leads to more inclusive and resilient experiences.

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Guest

Anna Thielke is an entrepreneur and systems thinker who leads Mantis & Co., a disability-owned accessibility and inclusive design agency. Drawing on 15+ years of experience and her background as a blind, neurodivergent leader, she helps teams build products and cultures that work for everyone. Previously Director of Inclusive Design at CVS Health, Anna is known for blending creativity, honesty, and practicality to move organizations from intention to action.

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on LinkedIn.

Sponsor

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

If you’ve ever struggled to balance perfection with business reality, this episode is for you. In this episode of the Design Systems Podcast, Chris Strahl talks with Noelle Lansford, founder of Shep, about why chasing the “perfect system” often breaks more than it fixes. Drawing on her experience across startups and Fortune 5 companies, Noelle argues that design systems succeed when they serve people and the business—not when they chase architectural purity. She and Chris dig into the realities of relational alignment between design, engineering, and product, the shift from component factories to consulting mindsets, and what AI means for the next generation of design leadership.

Here’s what stood out:

• Perfection shouldn’t be your goal
• Design systems teams should pursue an infrastructure + enablement structure
• Systems of systems thinking works—if the cultural conditions are right
• AI makes iteration faster, which makes human oversight more essential

View the transcript of this episode.

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Guest

Noelle Lansford began her career as an engineer on design system teams before transitioning into design, where she discovered her passion for connecting the technical and human sides of digital product creation. Today, as the founder of Shep, a design systems consultancy that partners with organizations from early-stage startups to Fortune 5 companies, Noelle helps bridge the gap between design, engineering, and business strategy. Her work focuses on creating systems that balance structure with flexibility, prioritize people over process, and deliver lasting business value instead of chasing perfection.

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on LinkedIn.

Sponsor

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

In this episode, Chris Strahl talks with Elyse Holladay—staff design engineer at Color Health and host of On Theme—about the evolution of design systems and how AI is reshaping the way we think about abstraction, collaboration, and contribution. They explore what it means to maintain relevance in a landscape where LLMs increasingly influence product development, and reflect on whether design systems are still for people—or for machines. Elyse shares a clear-eyed yet optimistic take on how AI can enhance, rather than replace, the work of design system practitioners.

Key Points:

• Design systems are shifting focus from components to solving collaboration and workflow problems.
• AI isn’t replacing systems—it’s changing how they’re used and what they need to support.
• Smaller teams can move faster by focusing on what’s most valuable, not doing everything.
• Documentation is evolving to prioritize practical guidance over polished presentations.
• Design systems are becoming infrastructure for both humans and AI.

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Guest

Elyse Holladay (she/her) is a long-time Design Systems practitioner and speaker, currently the Staff Design Engineer for Color Health's Continuum Design System. She was tapped to start the first Design System team for Indeed, has taught hundreds of hours of technical training content, and has been invited to speak at well-known industry events such as Clarity Conference, CSSConf Berlin, and Frontend Design Conference. She is also the host of On Theme: Design Systems in Depth. She's a technical generalist, off-the-charts extrovert, avid reader, and expat Texan with an armadillo tattoo.

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Design systems aren’t just a UI toolkit—they’re the backbone of digital product creation and management. In this episode, engineer and researcher Steve Dodier-Lazaro joins Chris Strahl to unpack why treating design systems like standalone products is holding teams back. They explore what it really takes to scale product design and development in enterprise environments—from shared tooling and token standards to how AI and LLMs can bridge messy, real-world workflows.

In this episode:

• Why design systems are dependencies, not deliverables
• Tools and standards shaping the future of digital production
• How AI will reshape the infrastructure behind design and engineering

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Guest

Steve Dodier-Lazaro is a freelance software engineer specialised in design systems and frontend development based in Seine Saint-Denis, France. Steve is dedicated to advancing the design system tooling ecosystem through his open-source contributions as a community advocate, addon author and contributor to Storybook, and through projects around design token tooling.

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

What does it take to transform 121 years of automotive legacy into a modern digital ecosystem? Catherine Dubut, Director of Global UX Strategy at Ford Pro, joins Chris Strahl to share how her team is reengineering the organization’s fragmented product landscape into a scalable, unified digital assembly line.

With over 80 legacy sites, 20+ global markets, and deeply siloed teams, the scale and complexity of Ford Pro’s challenge was immense. Catherine explains how her team brought structure to chaos—combining elements from outdated systems, building new foundations where needed, and stitching them together into a single, coherent design system. From establishing governance and cross-functional collaboration to introducing micro frontends and scaling adoption, this episode offers a playbook for modernizing UX at enterprise scale.

Key themes:

• Designing for fleets, not just drivers—multiple users, journeys, and roles per customer
• Replatforming 80+ tools across legacy systems and international business units
• Building a design system through consolidation, extension, and future-proofing
• Using micro frontends to bridge disparate tech stacks across Ford Pro
• Measuring success through design efficiency, team adoption, and developer alignment

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Guest

Catherine Dubut is Director of Global UX Strategy at Ford Pro, the commercial business of Ford Motor Company. She oversees a global team of individual contributors and managers across design, user research, information architecture, and content strategy. Catherine is a seasoned UX leader with a track record of designing impactful experiences, driving UX practice maturity, and digital transformation at dynamic brands at places like Samsung Electronics, REI, and Intuit. Based in Seattle, Catherine’s been involved in design community activities including organizing local events, mentoring underrepresented UX professionals, public speaking, and writing. She enjoys exploring cities, outdoors, architecture, and other adventures with her husband, daughter, and terrier mix rescue.

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

The design token nerds are taking over the pod! In this episode, guest host Christopher Bloom sits down with Garth Braithwaite, Lead Senior Staff Design Engineer at Adobe, for a deep dive into the inner workings of Spectrum’s design tokens. Garth shares how Adobe manages the complexity of scaling a multi-platform design system, and how thoughtful collaboration across teams builds real value for users.

They get into the weeds on cross-team communication, naming conventions, accessibility, versioning, and Garth’s own front-end manifesto. If you’re building, scaling, or just geeking out over design tokens—this one’s pure gold.

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Guest
Garth Braithwaite is a Lead Senior Staff Design Engineer at Adobe, where he plays a key role in maintaining the Spectrum design system. With a background in both design and engineering, Garth brings a unique perspective to scaling design systems and improving workflows across teams.

Host
Christopher Bloom is a Principal Front-end Engineer at Knapsack. He's a design system nerd, avid mountain biker, and all-around ball of insight and energy.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the digital production platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

In this episode, TJ Pitre, founder of South Left, joins the podcast to trace the real evolution of digital production — from the early days of Flash and Fireworks to today's dynamic, system-driven workflows. TJ shares his journey bridging design and development, reflects on the rise of modern tools like Figma, and explores the shift toward more connected, production-ready design. Along the way, he breaks down the growing role of the design engineer, the impact of AI on creative workflows, and what the future holds for building smarter, faster digital products.

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Guest

TJ Pitre is the founder of South Left, a boutique front-end agency that lives at the intersection of design and development. With roots in illustration, UI design, and engineering, TJ helps teams transform static ideas into dynamic, production-ready systems. He’s a passionate advocate for design engineering, smarter workflows, and the evolving future of digital production.

Host

Andrew Rohman is EVP of Strategy at Knapsack, where he helps enterprises close the gap between design and code and accelerate digital product delivery at scale. He’s passionate about building better systems, reducing risk, and creating positive change across teams and organizations.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the digital production platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

This week, we're digging into the Design Systems Podcast archives. Guest host Richard Banfield, VP of Design Leadership at Knapsack, revisits a 2020 conversation between host Chris Strahl and Rick Rodriguez, then Head of Design Systems at Walmart Labs.

Rick shares how his team developed Living Design, Walmart’s internal design system, to support both customer-facing and associate-facing digital products. The conversation explores what it takes to design for scale across a massive enterprise ecosystem, how to navigate legacy technologies while planning for the future, and how to engage people across your organization to drive alignment and adoption.

You’ll also hear about:

• Lessons in contribution, ownership, and iteration within a federated design organization
• The ambassador program that helped evangelize and align teams across the enterprise
• Insights into how data and qualitative feedback drive system decisions — especially around complex components like carousels

Although this conversation originally aired five years ago, the lessons Rick shares remain strikingly relevant. As design systems continue to mature, this episode offers a timeless perspective on scaling thoughtfully, building collaboratively, and evolving with intention.

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Guest

Rick Rodriguez is currently a Product Design Manager at Meta, but at the time of our original episode he wast the Head of Design Systems at Walmart Labs.  He is an avid runner, hand letterer, and superfan of cappuccinos and donut breaks. You can find Rick on Twitter as @rickrodriguez, and on LinkedIn.

Hosts

Richard Benfield is the VP of Design Leadership at Knapsack. He's acted as an advisor and interim executive to category-leading organizations, ia a best selling author, been a founder/CEO, and built and sold several businesses over the last 20+ years.

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

In this episode of the Design Systems Podcast, guest host Andrew Rohman sits down with Jon Warden to explore how GSK leverages design systems to drive consistency, innovation, and efficiency across a highly complex global organization. With multiple brands, multi-product ecosystems, and diverse regional needs, GSK must balance scale and flexibility while embracing automation, AI, and modern workflows—all while keeping the customer experience at the center of their digital strategy.

Key Topics Covered:

• How GSK creates design consistency across multiple brands, products, and global regions
• The role of design systems in managing complexity at scale
• AI and automation in streamlining workflows and driving efficiency
• How GSK balances innovation with regulatory and operational constraints
• The impact of scalable workflows on accelerating digital transformation
• Building digital experiences that meet customer needs while maintaining global consistency

Tune in for a deep dive into how one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies is leveraging design systems to power its digital strategy, drive innovation, and create seamless customer experiences at scale.

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Guest

Jon Warden is a user experience, design, and product strategist with over 25 years of experience. In the past decade, he has created, led, and managed UX, design, and product teams across various sectors, including news (The Times, London), B2B, B2C, media agencies, telecoms, and charity. Jon focuses on providing clear UX direction throughout the development lifecycle. He and his teams emphasize outcome-based user research, data, and user testing programs. Through UX design practices, they support the creation of user-centric products that engage customers across all channels. Currently, Jon is the Global Director of UX, Design & Research in the Commercial Digital & AI division at GSK.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

In this episode of The Design Systems Podcast, guest host Richard Banfield takes us on a journey through the intersection of artificial intelligence and design systems. We revisit some of the most compelling discussions featuring experts David Calleja, Nick Hahn, Ranjeet Tayi, and Kate Moran. Together, they unravel how AI is transforming the way digital products are designed and developed. From AI's potential as a creative partner to its role in automating repetitive tasks, this episode dives into the profound impact AI is having on design workflows. We explore how AI can serve as a copilot, adapting in real time to deliver personalized user experiences, and discuss the importance of maintaining human oversight to ensure quality and integrity. Whether it's hyper-personalizing user interfaces or enhancing the efficiency of design processes, AI is not set to replace humans but to augment our creativity and productivity. Join us as we explore the exciting possibilities AI brings to the world of design systems.

Check out the original episodes:

• How AI is Revolutionizing Design Systems and Customer Experiences with Dave Calleja
• Design Systems and Ways of Working: Nick Hahn on Collaboration, Adoption, and AI
• Ranjeet Tayi from Informatica: AI-Driven Design
• Why Kate Moran Thinks Humans Are Essential to the Future of Generative UI and AI

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Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

in this episode Knapsack's VP of Design Leadership, Richard Banfield takes a look back at a conversation between Chris Strahl and Emily Campbell. They discuss the convergence of design and code, and what that actually looks like. They walk through what a designer role looks like in a modern digital product team and Emily explains her idea that design and development are the same. They just have different approaches to the same process or medium.

Other topics the duo touch on include questioning if designers should learn to code, intent around design and development, the importance of making intentional decisions, and more.

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Emily Campbell
Now the VP of Design at HackerRank, at the time of original recording Emaily was a Senior Design Specialist for InVision. Emily is a veteran design and product practitioner who focuses on human-centered design, translating creative strategy into business value, building a culture of leadership, and sharing ownership across disciplines. On the side, Emily enjoys exploring the desert around her home in Moab, Utah with her husband and three kids.

You can find Emily on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Other Show Notes
Learn about Conway's Law and the Portland Swifts.

Increasingly, design systems need to support multi-product ecosystems with a diverse array of consumers and stakeholders. This week, Chris Strahl sits down with Miranda Bouck from Instacart to explore the intricacies of managing a multi-faceted design system. Miranda delves into the challenges and strategies of balancing the diverse needs of consumer apps, internal apps, and enterprise retail partners, all while maintaining system flexibility and performance. Learn how Instacart's small but mighty design system team effectively supports a vast network of designers, developers, and business partners. Tune in for a fascinating discussion on pushing the boundaries of design systems in a complex ecosystem.

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Guest
Miranda is a Staff Product Designer at Instacart, working on the Instacart Design System, Pantry. Her aim: build products that create an accessible, logical, and predictable user experience. Blueberries. They're always in my cart.

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Many enterprise organizations face the challenge of scaling their design systems as the scope of product support expands through adoption and acquisition.

In this episode of the Design Systems Podcast, host Chris Strahl speaks with Will Rodenbough, Senior UX Designer at Avalara, about the critical role of design systems in enabling scalability and supporting a growth-by-acquisition strategy.

Key Topics Covered:

• Scaling Through Systems Thinking: How Avalara's design system harmonizes diverse products across its growing ecosystem.
• Supporting Growth-by-Acquisition: Strategies for integrating acquired companies into a unified design system.
• Collaboration and Accessibility: Ensuring stakeholder alignment and prioritizing accessibility as a foundation for scalable design.

Listen to discover how Will leverages design systems to drive scalability and growth in a multi-product organization.

View the transcript of this episode.

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Guest

Will Rodenbough is a Senior UX Designer based in Seattle with over a decade of experience working at startups and industry-leading tech companies. He has been the design lead on the Avalara design system since its inception in 2018, collaborating with teams across the company to provide scalable and accessible solutions that emphasize a thoughtful balance between consistency and flexibility.

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

In our first episode of 2025, Chris Strahl sits down with Adriana Morales, Design Principal at H-E-B, to explore the evolution, challenges, and triumphs of design systems in organizations at different stages of maturity. Adriana shares her journey from IBM to H-E-B, highlighting how each company’s unique financial priorities and cultural dynamics shape the mission and execution of their design systems. Together, they discuss the paradox of design systems: balancing constraints with creativity, and ensuring they enhance rather than hinder innovation. Adriana also offers actionable strategies for celebrating small wins, sustaining engagement, and demonstrating the tangible value of design systems across teams, leaders, and executives. Tune in for an inspiring start to the new year!

View the transcript of this episode.

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Guest

Adriana Morales is a Design Principal at H-E-B based in Austin, TX, where she uses systems thinking and radical collaboration to create scalable design systems, resources, and tools to bridge the gaps between design and engineering teams and build cohesive experiences. She believes in nurturing the next generation of designers to find clarity in complexity and uncover their hidden powers.

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

In this special episode of the Design Systems Podcast, co-founders Chris Strahl and Evan Lovely celebrate five years of the podcast and reflect on their journey from agency work to building Knapsack. They discuss the evolution of design systems, lessons learned from working with global enterprise clients, and the importance of composability, constraints, and community in driving innovation. Enjoy anecdotes from their early days and a look ahead at the role of AI and design systems in the future.

View the transcript of this episode.

Check out our upcoming events.

If you want to get in touch with the show, ask some questions, or tell us what you think, send us a message over on LinkedIn.

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

In this episode, Chris talks with Daniel Ley and Jonas Ulrich from KickstartDS, a framework designed to simplify design system creation and drive meaningful adoption. They dive deep into what adoption really means, moving beyond metrics like component coverage to focus on efficiency, team morale, and an iterative approach. Drawing on real-world examples like UNICEF Germany, they share how effective adoption strategies can reduce complexity, speed up delivery, and maximize impact. Tune in to learn how to measure and represent adoption in ways that truly reflect your design system's value!

View the transcript of this episode.

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If you want to get in touch with the show, ask some questions, or tell us what you think, send us a message over on LinkedIn.

Guests
Jonas Ulrich and Daniel Ley are the founders of kickstartDS and owners of ruhmesmeile, a consultancy specializing in design systems and headless CMS. After over 15 years of experience developing websites and UIs as a traditional online agency, they sought to improve how teams work on web frontends. This vision led them to establish kickstartDS as a corporate venture in 2021, providing an open source meta framework for design system creation.

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Language shapes the way we think and structure the world we build. On this episode of The Design Systems Podcast, Chris Strahl sits down with Ben Callahan, co-founder of Sparkbox, to explore the critical role of language and communication in team dynamics, problem-solving, and system structures. Ben shares insights on how linguistic choices shape product creation and drive organization-wide cohesion. He argues that while common ground is essential, design systems should balance order with controlled "quenched disorder" to foster innovation, using flexible, layered structures that adapt to unique team needs and create scalable, culturally embedded solutions. Listen to the full episode to gain a deeper understanding of the intricate relationship between language, design systems, and organizational culture, as well as practical insights on fostering system adoption and cross-team collaboration.

View the transcript of this episode.

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Guest
Ben Callahan is a developer, designer, and founder of Sparkbox, known for his engaging presentations, workshops, and his interactive series The Question. With a passion for sharing knowledge, Ben uses his journey to inspire others, bridging the gap between technical insights and the human challenges within design and development.

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Explore the unique parallels between urban planning and design systems with Andii Hei. Discover how cities and digital landscapes share principles of structure, adaptability, and creative constraints. Andii offers insights into how these connections reveal new ways to think about system design, collaboration, and the evolution of digital experiences. Whether you're building cityscapes or digital ecosystems, this episode uncovers the essential blueprint for effective design.

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Guest
Andii Hei is a Senior Product Designer leading the transformation of Wesco's enterprise design system, Synergy. A lifelong learner with a zeal for interdisciplinary thinking, often drawing inspiration from diverse fields like the built environment, linguistics, and philosophy.

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

On today's episode of The Design Systems Podcast, Allison Shaw, Director of Design at Adobe, shares insights from her expansive journey in design systems. From her early days modernizing Yelp’s desktop experience to her pivotal roles at Zendesk and Adobe, Allison talks openly about transitioning from a designer IC role to management, the power of humility, and the importance of fostering strong mentor relationships. Check it out!

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Guest
Allison helps companies mature and scale their design system practices and is passionate about inclusive, accessible design. Currently, Allison is the Director of Design for the Spectrum Design System at Adobe, leading the core design system and unified experiences across Creative Cloud and Generative AI. She previously led the Garden Design System at Zendesk, and also worked across consumer tech at places like Thumbtack, Twitter, and Yelp.

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Are components a necessary part of a design system? In this episode of The Design Systems Podcast, Alice Preisler, the Product Owner of Design System at ADP challenges the idea that all design systems start with a component library. Alice and host, Chris Strahl discuss what starting with documentation and design tokens instead of components might do for a design system and product teams. Alice shares her vision of using a linting tool to enforce design consistency to create a cohesive user experience. Tune in for fun thought experiments and pragmatic insights on fostering creativity within constraints, and the role of documentation and tooling for faster, consistent product development.

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Guest
Alice Preisler leads the development of ADP's enterprise design system to cover all technical platforms (web, iOS, Android, ATM) across unique customer-facing brands. Alice leads highly visible, complex and customer driven products, projects, programs, and portfolios. She excels managing stakeholders, bringing the right resources into complex global projects to ensure successful execution. 

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

On today's episode of the Design Systems Podcast, we hear from Catalina Manea, Senior Designer at Spelunk, about the crucial intersection of design and development. Catalina shares her journey from graphic design to product and systems design, providing insights into the importance of reusability, cross-functional collaboration, and empathy in building scalable and adaptable design systems. Catalina emphasizes that design systems go beyond UI and consistency—they are powerful tools for enhancing teamwork and agility in fast-paced environments.

View the transcript of this episode.

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Guest
Catalina Manea has been a system designer since the early stages of her career as a product designer, working with both emerging and established design systems. She has collaborated with cross-functional teams to launch new systems from scratch and has contributed to refining and evolving well-established ones across multiple industries. Throughout Catalina’s career, she has enjoyed mentoring junior designers and sharing insights at industry conferences.

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

What does the future of UX look like? In today's episode, our host, Chris Strahl, sits down with Kate Moran, the VP of Research and Content at Nielsen Norman Group. They explore the promise of hyper-personalized experiences, the challenges of resource limitations, and the innovative potential of AI in accelerating design processes. Kate touches on the balance between speed and risk when integrating AI into products, highlighting the significance of human input in maintaining brand consistency and preventing unpredictability. Their conversation addresses ethical considerations, data privacy, and the societal impact of AI, emphasizing transparent communication from organizations.

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Guest

Kate Moran is an expert in UX research, writing, and strategy. She has made substantial contributions to the field through her research and thought leadership. Kate is Vice President of Research and Content at Nielsen Norman Group.

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

In this episode of The Design Systems Podcast, Chris Strahl welcomes Guy Segal, the director of digital ecosystem and design systems at Thomson Reuters. Guy shares his experience of building a design system that serves over 150+ brands and the importance of having a point of view when you are working to bring both quality and consistency to a large portfolio of products. From design system missionaries to trojan horses to carrots and sticks, Guy and Chris talk about how to gain the buy-in you need to build a design system product teams will want to use.

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Guest

Guy Segal is a design leader with over 25 years of experience in the tech industry, specializing in UX, product design, and DesignOps. Leveraging his passion for design leadership and people management, he has a proven track record of fostering innovation and collaboration within design teams, establishing and nurturing design practices, and leading teams to success. Guy's expertise extends to various domains, including product, UX, and service design, as well as a strong background in web and UI development. In recent years, he has been focusing extensively on design systems, establishing and growing teams around the practice, and launching systems that optimize efficiency and enhance user experiences. Beyond his professional endeavors, Guy is an avid enthusiast of board games, food, and movies, welcoming conversations on diverse topics that extend beyond the realm of design.

Guy’s Design Downtime podcast: http://designdowntime.com/

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

It’s all just opinions, man! In this episode of the Design Systems Podcast, Mark Shuster talks about the shift away from enforcing strict guidelines through design systems towards enabling good design and production practices in a more transparent and collaborative way.  Chris and Mark discuss different sources of truth within a design system, flexibility and iteration, and why composability is so important to the future of the product engineering process. 

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Guest
Mark Shuster is an Engineering Manager at Dropbox, leading a team responsible for building DIG, Dropbox’s design system. With previous design systems experience at Twitch and BuzzFeed, Mark has a rich background spanning UX design and front-end development. He holds a Master’s degree in Human-Computer Interaction from Carnegie Mellon University and is based in the Bay Area.

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

This week we are joined by Nick Hahn to explore how designers, engineers, product managers, and entire organizations have changed the way they think about and work with design systems. Nick shares insight from his experiences at IBM, InVision, Meta, and Bill.com to highlight the importance of collaboration, governance, education, and cultural adoption. Join host, Chris Strahl and Nick to understand how design systems evolved and what’s next..

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Guest

Nick Hahn has spent 20+ years working in the design industry. He specializes in the human side of Design, building scalable systems and operations for some of the top brands in the world, including IBM, Meta, and Bill.com.

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Recording during Config 2024, this bonus episode of The Design Systems Podcast features long-time friends of the Pod, Jina Anne and Adekunle Oduye. They share their fresh takes on the latest Figma keynote, including the buzz around AI-generated designs and the revamped Figma UI. The conversation explores the future of design systems, deeper code integrations, and personalized user experiences enabled by AI. Plus, Jina and Adekunle give a sneak peek into their upcoming book! 

View the transcript of this episode.

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Guest

Jina Anne is a designer, developer, and community advocate. She founded Clarity (ClarityConf.com), the premier design systems community conference, and organizes meet-ups in the San Francisco area.).Jina is also a published author and public speaker. 

Adekunle Oduye is UX engineer specializing in design systems, front-end development and prototyping. He is also an avide travel fan, host of the Code & Pixels Podcast, and working with Jina Anne to write a book. 

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Today’s episode features Ashley Willard and Sarah Kimball (Skim) from Apiture, a smallish fintech company with big enterprise ambitions for its design system. Host Christ Strahl chats with Ashley and Skim about the challenges and opportunities their small team faces trying to navigate the complexities of building a design system that unifies the look and feel of different products and technologies and helps accelerate product delivery. Whether you're working in a large enterprise or a growing startup, their story provides valuable lessons on creating and maintaining effective design systems.

View the transcript of this episode.

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Guest

Ashley is the Director of Product Design at Apiture and has worked in design and UX for 20+ years across many industries. She lives in Durham, NC.

Skim is a Design Systems nerd who has been working in this space since 2018. She currently works as a Senior UX Engineer at Apiture.

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Chris Strahl welcomes Dave Calleja back to the podcast to discuss the changing nature of design systems, integrating AI into the human creative process, and how to use behavior data for real-time design adaptations. Dave shares his views on the importance of design systems to customer experiences and how modern tools help scale personalized experiences that align with brand vision. Tune in to discover how the future of design systems is being shaped by AI, automation, and personalized content.

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Guest
Dave leads the design practice at Merkle and dentsu in Australia-New Zealand as well as their Design Systems offering globally. He is deeply passionate about the role design plays creating in exceptional, memorable and transformative customer experiences. Right now, he’s focused on helping teams deliver a clear experience vision to every moment in the customer journey. You can connect with Dave on LinkedIn.

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Transcript

Chris Strahl [00:00:00]:

Hi, and welcome to the Design Systems podcast. This podcast is about the place where design and development overlap. We talk with experts to get their point of view about trends in design code and how it relates to the world around us. As always, this podcast is brought to you by Knapsack. Check us out at knapsack.cloud. If you want to get in touch with the show, ask some questions, or generally tell us what you think, go ahead and tweet us at thedspod. We'd love to hear from you. Hey, everyone.

Chris Strahl [00:00:22]:

Welcome to the design Systems podcast. I'm your host, Chris Strahl. Today I'm here with a repeat guest, Dave Calleja. Dave, it's so great to have you back. I know you're in the midst of a little bit of career reorganization, so why don't you talk about what you're doing these days?

Dave Calleja [00:00:36]:

Thanks, Chris. Really excited to be here again and really looking forward to the conversation. So my role has changed a bit since we last spoke. I'm responsible for experience design across Dentsu and Merkel in AnZ, and I'm also really excited to be leading our global design systems capability across Merkel.

Chris Strahl [00:00:53]:

Well, hey, it's great to have you back. It's been a long time coming. You were actually reminding me before the show that we used to record these asynchronously, like, with a ton of different software and everything like that. And, like, it's actually a different world of podcasting now that you've returned, so eager to have you back on, get kind of an update. And also, you know, one of the things that sparked this conversation was a post about the use of AI in design systems, and so I'm stoked to talk about it.

Dave Calleja [00:01:18]:

Yeah, likewise. You know, the world is changing so much faster since we last spoke. Like, we've been in contact on a number of different fronts, but since we last spoke, and what good looks like in the world of design systems and what people are sort o

Today on the podcast, we talk to Meredith Van Lier, the director of product management at ServiceNow. Chris and Meredith discuss the unique evolution of ServiceNow's design system and its shift towards a more flexible and user-centric design approach, emphasizing collaboration, automation, and accessibility. Learn about the strategic vision, collaborative efforts, and meticulous attention to quality defining ServiceNow's design system.

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Guest

Meredith Van Lier is the Director of Product Management, leading a team of product managers responsible for the Horizon Design System and UX foundations at ServiceNow. She provides product direction and strategy, focusing on driving modern experiences by enabling customers to design and build great experiences through the use of the design system. Meredith has more than 15 years of experience across enterprise, finance and consumer spaces.

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Welcome to another episode of The Design Systems Podcast! In honor of Global Accessibility Awareness Day, we're thrilled to have Daniel Henderson-Ede, an accessibility specialist, here to discuss the need for and challenges of making inclusive design experiences for those with disabilities, and how design systems can help. Daniel shares why and how accessibility considerations should influence every decision in design systems to create better, more inclusive products. We get into the importance of theme management, and the latest updates in accessibility standards. Join us as we navigate the critical intersections of design, accessibility, and system thinking to shed light on how we can enhance user experiences on a grand scale.

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Guest
Daniel Henderson-Ede (he/him) is an Accessibility Designer for design systems at Pinterest. He loves working alongside designers, engineers, and leaders to advocate for accessibility at scale, with the aim of creating equitable experiences for disabled users. He has also previously used his design system knowledge to publish a collection of accessibility annotation kits whilst at CVS Health.

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

On this episode of the Design Systems Podcast, we're thrilled to have Beau Ulrey, the Design System Manager at U.S. Bank, join host Chris Strahl live at the Kiln space in Portland. Today’s episode deep dives into the intricate world where design meets development. Beau will share his fascinating journey from a design and photography background to becoming a pioneer in interaction design at IBM, and his current influential role at U.S. Bank. Beau and Chris discuss the vital role design systems play in building customer trust through consistency, and how U.S. Bank’s design system is tailored to meet diverse customer needs across various platforms. We’ll also unpack the complexities of design codes and the transformative impact of well-integrated design systems in the banking industry.

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Guest
Beau Ulrey leads and manages the Shield Design System team at U.S. Bank. He's passionate about using empathy and good design to help people reach their goals. Whether working as a designer, coach or manager, his goal is to uncover what people need to create better experiences and tools. He writes about design systems and product design practices on Medium (@beauulrey) and talks them as well from time to time.When away from the screen, Beau can be found hiking in the PNW, splashing in the Pacific with his kiddos and toting his camera along the way.

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Join host Chris Strahl as he welcomes our guest Scott Strubberg to the Design Systems Podcast. Scott is a product manager and a key figure behind IBM's Carbon Design System. Today’s conversation unravels the complexities and innovations of integrating brand consistency across digital and physical realms. Chris and Scott explore how feedback and community contributions shape the system's evolution, and delve into IBM's unique "brand first" approach. Tune in to discover the strenuous yet rewarding process of managing design systems at scale and the significant role of community and partnerships in driving a design system forward. 

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Guest

Scott Strubberg is a Product Manager, Front-end developer, Designer, and Educator. Though his career has taken many forms over the years, a common thread of connecting technology to the people who need it has always been present. He spends most of his day rallying designers and developers around a common cause. When he’s not doing that, he’s a full-time parent along with his wife and their three boys.

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

We sit down with Brad Frost, a leading voice in design systems. Together, we explore the critical intersection between adaptable design systems and brand identities, unveiling the secrets to creating components that not only function seamlessly across platforms but also resonate with diverse brand aesthetics. Listen in as we discuss the layers of a successful design system, from global frameworks to the 'recipes' that define specific use cases, and highlight the importance of industry-wide component standardization. This thought-provoking conversation with Brad Frost promises to elevate your approach to design systems.

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Guest
Brad Frost is a design system consultant, front-end developer, speaker, writer, musician, and artist located in beautiful Pittsburgh, PA. As a principal and design system consultant at Big Medium, he helps teams establish and evolve design systems, establish more collaborative workflows, and create better software together.. He is the author of the book Atomic Design, which introduces a methodology to create and maintain effective design systems. He co-hosted the Style Guides Podcast and has helped create several tools and resources for web designers, including Pattern Lab, Styleguides.io, Style Guide Guide, This Is Responsive, Death to Bullshit, and more.

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Informatica's design and AI director, Ranjeet Tayi doing us on the Design Systems Podcast to discuss AI's transformative impact on design systems, elucidating the shift from static products to dynamic, personalized AI-driven experiences. Chris and Ranjeet navigate through the intricacies of AI's influence on crafting hyper-personalized interfaces, the burgeoning role of predictive analytics in UIs, and the ascendance of voice and text as forefronts of design. The discussion extends to the integration of AI in chatbots, the pivotal role of open-source tools, and the breakthroughs in creativity AI has facilitated in areas like movie and music production. Furthermore, we probe into the indispensable role of design systems in fostering cohesive components, enhancing personalized branding, and amplifying user engagement through continuous learning. Our conversation culminates by highlighting the convergence of AI and design, underlining the significance of structured data, ethical considerations, and AI's capability to redefine the software development lifecycle.

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Guest
Ranjeet Tayi, Director of AI Experience at Informatica, brings 18+ years of UX and AI leadership, advocating GOOD DATA & GOOD DESIGN. Worked at SumTotal, PURE IT Usability Research, and co-founding Mind Visions, he holds 5 patents and is an extraordinary recipient, with a background in Philosophy in Mass Communication & Design Management. Recognized as a speaker, author, and design awards judge, Ranjeet actively serves on non-profit boards & design councils.

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Chris and Shawn explore how design tools shape final products, emphasizing the crucial role of managing elements like forms and tables. Shawn shares insights on uniting Adobe departments for greater cohesion and how Spectrum 2 reflects organizational change. They discuss AI integration in design interfaces, drawing parallels with Apple's iPhone design evolution, highlighting AI's potential to revolutionize user experiences. Hear about intricacies of translating visual designs into functional code and maintaining brand consistency across product suites. They reflect on the challenges and excitement of problem-solving iterations, the evolution of design systems, and aligning brand with user experience.

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Guest
As a Senior Director of Experience Design at Adobe, Shawn Cheris runs Spectrum—an organization responsible for the overall brand and experience of all Adobe products—with teams focused on design systems, brand, iconography, content strategy, engineering, prototyping, and more. Outside of work, Shawn is also a father and husband and enjoys building (physical) things, photography, making music, cooking, baking, and a million other hobbies he wishes he had more time for. 

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

In this episode of the Design Systems Podcast, we explore the intricate world of theme management in complex design systems at Intuit. Nate Baldwin, Principal Designer at Intuit, shares a revolutionary framework for design tokens, enhancing governance and accessibility. We learn about Figma's role in color swapping and Intuit's theming engine for granular adjustments. Discover the balance between brand integrity and user personalization, and how tools like Leonardo and Proportion support adaptive theming. Join us for insights into personalized internet design and the challenges of thematic flexibility with Intuit's Nate Baldwin.

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Guest
Nate Baldwin is a Principal Product Designer on the Intuit Design System team. Nate is experienced with multi-brand theming, adaptive color systems, and design tokens. He is the creator of Leonardocolor.io, Proportio.app, and the interactive color guide ColorAndContrast.com. Connect with Nate at https://natebaldw.in.

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.


Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

In this episode of the Design Systems Podcast, we invite you to join us as we engage in a conversation with David Müller, a product designer and design systems lead at one of the world’s top financial institutions. Together, we dive deep into the intricate landscape of banking systems, exploring the complexities of equipping problem solvers with the necessary tools. Gain insights into the importance of flexibility over a rigid "super component" and the significance of considering diverse user contexts. Join Chris and David as they discuss how AI is reshaping empathetic design systems, deliberate breakpoints for personalization, David's innovative design system, and the concept of an anti-fragile system. They emphasize cultivating patterns for innovation and balancing creativity with structure. Explore the future of UX/UI in an AI-driven world as they challenge conventional design practices in this thought-provoking episode.

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Guest
David Müller is a product and systems design lead who believes that HOW we do things is as important as WHAT we do. He spends a big part of his day bringing architecture, development, and product teams closer together to build products that make a real difference in the lives of their users, and do so more predictably.

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

PJ Onori, a design systems veteran since 2011 and a driving force behind Pinterest's Gestalt system, talks about the transformative impact of design systems on product development, potentially reshaping the job landscape in design and engineering. In this episode, PJ recounts a pivotal experience at Disney, highlighting the delicate balance between productivity gains and workforce dynamics.We explore the benefits and hurdles of design systems, emphasizing the need for systems thinking, criticality, and adaptability in today's job market. Discover how new hires are shaping future cultures by embracing these systems, and how design systems foster collaboration between design and engineering teams, beyond efficiency and ROI. PJ shares insights into overcoming resistance to design constraints and empowering designers within boundaries to unleash creativity. This episode is essential for understanding the interplay between creativity, structure, and the evolving landscape of product design and development.

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Guest
PJ has been working on design systems off and on since 2011 for companies such as General Electric, Disney and Pinterest. PJ is keynote speaker at the Design Systems Leadership Summit in San Francisco on April 18, 2024. If you're looking to connect with PJ and other leaders transforming the world of digital product development, submit your application to attend.

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Join us for a milestone episode of The Design Systems Podcast, featuring Brian Dorsey, a key contributor to Mastercard's groundbreaking design system MADE. Explore how integrating designers into infrastructure teams has revolutionized collaboration. Discover how Mastercard leverages its design system to drive business forward with insights on accessibility, performance, and themability. Learn about per-component versioning and system-level versioning and how they accelerate product development.

View the transcript of this episode.

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Guest
Brian Dorsey is a Director of Platform Product Management at Mastercard Data & Services, with a focus on building a development platform that accelerates time to market for products and provides a great developer experience. He treats the design system as front end infrastructure and a key piece of the overall platform.

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

On this episode of DSP, we welcome guest Jackie Lai, a lead UX designer at OPIS, a Dow Jones company, with a rich background in interactive and product design. Explore Jackie's diverse design journey from web to physical products and the transformation of design tools. Discover the importance of cross-functional collaboration and the perpetual evolution of design systems. Jackie shares insights on balancing uniformity and flexibility, creating adaptable systems for mass production, and seeking continuous learning in the field. 

View the transcript of this episode.

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Guest
Jackie Lai is deeply committed to fostering team empowerment through collaboration, shared services, and infrastructure design that ultimately benefits our end users. With over two decades of experience, she has honed her interdisciplinary skill set working in a wide variety of settings from startups to established giants. When not working, you'll find her exploring the globe, connecting with nature, practicing yoga, and savoring the art of preparing and enjoying matcha.

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

In this episode of The Design Systems Podcast, we’re joined by guest Kevin Muldoon, Lead Design Technologist/Design Systems at Dow Jones, to discuss the concepts of alexandrian patterns and their application in design systems. We explore the idea of themes as reusable objects to solve specific design problems, discussing the challenges and potential solutions in creating composable and scalable design systems. The conversation dives deep into the evolution of design methodologies and the democratization of the creative process.

View the transcript of this episode.

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Guest
Kevin Muldoon is a designer, programmer, writer and speaker on Design Systems and a Lead Design Technologist at Dow Jones. He created the Genome Color Tool palette generator and advocates the study of Game Design to create Design Systems at scale.

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Curt Schreiber, Chief Creative Officer at VSA Partners, joins us for a compelling conversation on the multifaceted nature of design systems. We explore how these intricate frameworks must cater to a diverse array of users and stakeholders, highlighting the need for design systems to personify the organization's character. Curt shares his insights on maintaining design systems that are not only comprehensive and scalable but also flexibly attuned to the global audiences they serve. Throughout the episode, we address the importance of co-creation, continuous learning, and governance in the ever-expanding world of design.

Tune in to witness Curt's balanced view on the role of AI in asset creation and system management, while he weighs in on the prospect of centralizing control versus nurturing a rich ecosystem of design assets. The discussion encapsulates the pivotal role of design systems in strategic business conversations, underscoring their ability to reshape customer engagement and drive organizational change.

View the transcript of this episode.

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Guest
Curt Schreiber is the heart of VSA design. He currently guides VSA’s creative philosophy, and is responsible for establishing the office’s design standards and offerings. Throughout his 30-year tenure with the company, Curt has been essential in the agency’s transition from a boutique design firm to a brand-led customer experience agency. Curt has decades of experience working with internationally-recognized global brands, and his client list includes VSA’s most prominent clientele. He also serves as an influential thought leader within the creative industry. Most recently, Curt was named one of Chicago’s most influential designers and included in AIGA’s This is Chicago. Curt’s work has been recognized by more than 100 international design and communications organizations, publications and competitions including the AIGA, Cannes Lions, Cooper Hewitt, Communication Arts, Graphis and the Society of Typographic Arts. His work is also included in the permanent collection of the U.S. Library of Congress.

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Jina Anne and Adekunle Oduye join host Chris Strahl in a candid conversation that explores career pathways within the evolving realm of design systems amidst the latest market conditions. They share valuable insights on how the key to thriving in uncertain times is through understanding the nuanced dance between business language and design practice. Jina, renowned for her pioneering efforts in design tokens at Salesforce, illustrates the importance of scalability and care for user experience. Adekunle, drawing from his experience as lead design engineer at Plaid, discusses the intricate balancing act of adopting new technologies while maintaining user trust and meeting business objectives.

View the transcript of this episode.

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Speakers
Jina (they/she) is a design systems advocate. They founded Clarity, a design systems community conference, and they maintain the Design Systems Slack. Jina co-chairs the Design Tokens Community Group. And on the Sass core team, they lead the brand and website design and development. Jina is also recognized as a Google Developers Expert (in Web Technologies [UI and Tooling]). Jina has been making websites as a hobby for about 30 years. They’ve worked professionally in the industry for 22 years (19 of those years working with design systems). They have been said to be one of the most cheerful goths.

Adekunle Oduye (Add-eh-koon-lay Oh-due-yay) is an UX Engineer born / breed / based in Brooklyn, New York. Currently he's at Plaid, where he's helping to build Threads, Plaid's official design system. Outside of work he's a coach, speaker, and co-hosts the Code and Pixels podcast. He's very passionate about design systems, prototyping, and front-end development. When he's not building software, you can probably find him reading up on Stoicism or planning my next adventure.

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

In this episode of the Design Systems Podcast, we discuss the evolution of design systems with special guest Matt Weinberg, Senior Product Designer at Angi. Matt has a passion for empathy-driven design solutions and shares his unconventional career path that led him to tackle the challenge of refining and improving the design systems at Angi. He reveals how he approached the initial state of the design system, identified user needs, and implemented incremental improvements. Matt also shares the importance of gathering user feedback, conducting usability tests, and embracing a collaborative approach between designers and engineers. His insights provide a valuable roadmap for anyone navigating the complex world of design systems.

View the transcript of this episode.

Check out our upcoming events.

Guest
Matt Weinberg is a systems-specialized product designer from Brooklyn, NY, currently working on design systems for Angi. He is largely focused on design system ergonomics, designer-engineer collaboration, tooling + workflows, accessibility, and keeping systematic UI creative + fun.

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor
Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Josh Clark and Chris Strahl dive into an in-depth discussion about navigating the digital landscape amidst economic unpredictability. They discuss the intricacies of building and maintaining design systems in large organizations, addressing the challenges of scaling, and emphasizing the strategic value of digital investments. Josh, an advocate for design systems as capital expenditure, shares his expertise on how these systems contribute to product development, impact revenue, and enhance customer retention, all while ensuring a balance between innovation and automation.

View the transcript of this episode.

Check out our upcoming events.

Guest

Josh Clark is the founder and principal of Big Medium, a digital agency that specializes in big design, helping complex organizations design at scale. He‘s a UX design leader who guides projects to build design systems and transform digital organizations through emerging technology, process, and user experience. At Big Medium, Josh’s clients include Caterpillar, United Airlines, UPS, the Cigna Group, Dotdash Meredith, Pfizer, and many others.

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.


Sponsor

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Chris Strahl sits with Nathan Curtis as he explores the delicate balance between reusing existing components and creating customized solutions in UI design. They unpack the complexities of design systems, touching on everything from color selection to ensuring functional and aesthetic harmony, providing insights on principled design choices in a world where reuse and customization are equally important.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Check out our upcoming events here.

Guest

Nathan co-founded EightShapes with Dan Brown near Washington, DC in 2006. He’s passionate about information architecture, user experience design, and front end development, and leads and consults with design systems teams to chart a strategic path and optimize operations. He wrote Modular Web Design in 2009, blogs about design systems regularly, and speaks at events worldwide.

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Join Chris Strahl as he sits with Lisa Apers, a visionary in UI design, as she presents her innovative research on brainwave-responsive user interfaces. Explore how EEG sensors integrated into UIs can revolutionize our digital experiences, creating interfaces that dynamically adapt to individual cognitive states and daily activities. 

View the transcript of this episode here.

Check out our upcoming events here.

Guest

I’m an independent designer and researcher. Partnering with change makers, I craft scalable digital experiences through various services across brand, web and product design.

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Join Chris Strahl and Tim Banker on an exciting dive into the world of innovative design systems. They explore the creation of tailored solutions for a diverse range of global markets, showcasing how a 'system of systems' approach can meet various needs, from marketing to transactional experiences. Get ready to transcend the one-size-fits-all model and redefine design flexibility.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘Design System Roadmap & Strategy for the Enterprise’ on November 29th. 

Guest

Tim Banker serves as Senior Director of Global Experience Design at Slalom Consulting. He specializes in helping companies on their journey toward design at scale, with a focus on design systems, design & research operations, and enterprise accessibility strategy.

Resources:

https://erinmeyer.com/books/the-culture-map/
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/crosscultural-design/
https://www.w3.org/blog/international/
https://www.w3.org/TR/international-specs/
https://uxknowledgebase.com/internationalization-localization-d84795b7962c
https://rtlstyling.com/
https://systems-of-harm.fireside.fm/

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Join Chris Strahl as he sits with Alex Wilson and Jon Reidy as they discuss their approach to evolving with community demands at T. Rowe Price. Dive into the dynamic process of identifying what drives your customers, crafting solutions that resonate, and ensuring widespread adoption of these innovations. 

View the transcript of this episode here.

Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘Design System Roadmap & Strategy for the Enterprise’ on November 29th. 

Guest

Alex is the Engineering Manager and Technical Lead of the Design System at T. Rowe Price. He specializes in leveraging web standards to craft performant, accessible, and interoperable components that enhance both user and developer experiences.

Jon is a Design System leader at T. Rowe Price. He previously led the Design System at HSBC and has been specializing in this space for around 8 years.

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Join Chris Strahl and Maya Hampton as they unpack the power of usage data and its pivotal role in driving adoption, efficiency, and quality. Dive deep, discover the real value of design systems, and see how every component counts!

View the transcript of this episode here.

Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘Design System Roadmap & Strategy for the Enterprise’ on November 29th. 

Guest

Maya is the Senior Digital Product Manager for Design Systems at REI, where she leads a cross-functional team on a mission to build a robust foundation for the co-op's digital ecosystem. You can follow her work on the Cedar Design System at https://cedar.rei.com/

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Join Chris Strahl and JJ Rogers, as they explore the challenges and triumphs of harmonizing diverse products at Watermark, highlighting how a harmonized ecosystem elevates user experience and ensures consistent design across all platforms.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Check out our upcoming events here.

Guest

JJ Rogers serves as Director of Product Design at Watermark, a software provider helping institutions engage educators and learners to improve institutional effectiveness, program quality, and student learning. He brings a wealth of experience from his work in design consultancies to the mergers and acquisitions space, creating a unified, holistic suite of products for 1700+ higher ed institutions.

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Join Chris Strahl, Kevin Goldman, and Sierre Wolfkostin as they sit down to explore the Fido Alliance's mission of revolutionizing online authentication by eliminating traditional passwords and replacing them with secure and user-friendly passkeys. Discover how these principles, tested and proven, are set to transform user experiences and incentivize the widespread use of passkeys, offering a glimpse into the future of design systems.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘What Really Matters in Design Systems’ on October 25th. 

Guests

Kevin is the Chief Experience Officer at Trusona where he helped create the Trusona Authentication Cloud — a passkey-as-a-service platform, offering the simplest, quickest, and lowest cost way to increase website engagement with passkeys. Prior to Trusona, Kevin founded the user experience (UX) consulting firm, 29th Drive, which was acquired three years later. Kevin serves as a FIDO Alliance Board member. He chartered and is Chair of the FIDO Alliance UX Working Group comprised of UX professionals from 31 global brands. Outside of work, he likes quality time with his kids, motorcycle track riding, forging knives, and time away from the fragile glowing screen.

Sierre is a product designer based in Ann Arbor, MI. With a learning mindset and a focus on understanding people, she has helped make Duo Security’s authentication experience both easier and more secure for all. Most recently, she led design for the Universal Prompt: a ground up UX and technical redesign of Duo’s core 2FA product. She now works to help kill the password and further improve our industry’s standards for authentication in partnership with the FIDO Alliance. Sierre holds degrees in UX design and business from the University of Michigan. In her free time, she enjoys writing non-fiction, reading books, and greeting the neighborhood cats.

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Chris Strahl sits with Jay Smith as they unravel the secrets of REI's design system consistency. Uncover how their groundbreaking approach to design, colors, and tokens is reshaping standards. With an eco-friendly twist: for every contribution to the system, trees are planted. As the system grows, so does a forest.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘What Really Matters in Design Systems’ on October 25th. 

Guest

Jay Smith is a systems thinker who loves building clever, durable solutions to root-cause problems. A Principal Product Designer at REI, he’s been creating and curating the decisions used by teams across the nation’s largest consumer cooperative for over a decade.

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Chris Strahl sits with Jamie Totten from Klue and they unpack the unique challenges and benefits of implementing a design system in a fast-paced startup. Drawing inspiration from Spotify's "guild format", they emphasize the importance of voluntary commitment, maintaining positivity and on making the most with limited resources.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘What Really Matters in Design Systems’ on October 25th. 

Guest

Jamie Totten is a UX Engineer at Klue, where he facilitates and coordinates the Design System Guild efforts, and hopes to someday turn the guild into a real team. Embedded on the Design team, he supports product and engineering teams with their features. He loves systems thinking, design, and engineering. He also loves clean, well structured code, and thoughtful design that solves human problems.

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Chris Strahl sits with Juli Sombat from Spotify and Jason Pamental from Chewy as they unravel the evolution of digital typography, emphasizing the shift from dictation to suggestion. They explore the dynamic between designers and users and the transformative power of user customization.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘What Really Matters in Design Systems’ on October 25th.

Guests

Juli Sombat is the design lead for Encore, Spotify’s family of design systems. Her passion for cross-functional collaboration and her deep understanding of the principles and practices that underpin successful design systems help her evangelize for systems thinking at all levels. Prior to Encore, she led the multi-brand design system at Conde Nast.

Jason Pamental is a Principal Designer at Chewy working on their design system, an Invited Expert on the W3C’s Web Fonts Working Group, and a deeply nerdy fan of variable fonts and web typography. Or just another hack with a camera phone, walking around at sunrise posting pictures of a really photogenic collie.

Link to the Monotype article Jason wrote: https://labs.monotype.com/caseco-a-case-for-variable-fonts-2d86960a0c19

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Chris Strahl sits with Tony Pantello and Chris Henke who tackle the age-old conflict between design and development. They discuss harnessing the power of design systems to streamline collaboration, conquer inefficiency, and unlock the true potential of their teams.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘What Really Matters in Design Systems’ on October 25th. 

Guest

Tony Pantello is a Senior UI/UX Designer and Product Design Team Lead at Accutech Systems based in Muncie, IN. He was the catalyst behind the creation of Accutech’s design system and is privileged to guide a small but mighty team building out Accutech’s product design discipline. He firmly believes that the waffle is the best sugary breakfast entree and can talk for days about his shark tank business ideas.

Chris Henke is a Senior UI/UX Developer on the Product Design team at Accutech Systems Inc. based in Muncie, IN. He helped build the design system at Accutech and is helping bring a focus to the front-end development and user experience of Accutech products.

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Chris Strahl and Billea Breen explore the essential interaction between design and development to craft a flawless user experience, offering tactics to maintain consistency and enhance workflows.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘What Really Matters in Design Systems’ on October 25th. 

Guest

Meet Billea, the Senior UX Designer at Monster who weaves tech magic into seamless user experiences. With a knack for bridging design and development and a passion for strong foundations, she crafts digital solutions that resonate with all users.

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Chris Strahl and Mark Reynolyds navigate the ever-changing world of design systems, exploring the idea that design and engineering roles will become more aligned in the near future.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘Theming in Complex Ecosystems’ with Donnie D’Amato on August 30th. 

Guest

Mark Reynolds is a design systems expert who works with enterprise organisations to set up successful design system practices. He is a consultant, educator and mentor in this space and helps elevate the benefits of design systems across the industry.

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Chris Strahl talks with Kevin Broich about his transition from backend developer to designer at Cisco. Kevin shares insights on creating a crucial CSS-based UI kit for Cisco's major rebranding phase and more.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘Theming in Complex Ecosystems’ with Donnie D’Amato on August 30th. 

Guest

Kevin Broich, Design Systems advocate. Experienced front-end architect, developer, designer and UI evangelist.  I live at the intersection of design and engineering. Always looking for ways to increase efficiency, reduce friction, and innovate with new tools, automation and processes.

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Chris Strahl chats with Kate and Cinita on Pinterest's design system, Gestalt. Learn how their team built a system prioritizing documentation, inclusivity and accessibility. A space designed to ensure global and remote activity, encouraging users to easily contribute and communicate effectively. 

View the transcript of this episode here.

Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘Theming in Complex Ecosystems’ with Donnie D’Amato on August 30th. 

Guests

Kate Halvorsen is a product designer based in Chicago, IL. She’s currently a staff product designer working on the mobile side of Pinterest’s Gestalt Design System. A big part of her day to day is advocating for experiences that are both accessible and equitable. She enjoys newstalgia design, slow travel and a good lavender matcha latte.

Cintia Romero is a product designer with over 12 years of experience building products and experiences for multiple platforms. Latina from Brazil, working at Pinterest as a Senior Product Designer on Gestalt, our Design System, and advocating for human-centered design while spreading good practices related to accessibility, diversity, and inclusion. 

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Join Chris Strahl as he sits down with Sriram Ramasubramanian from Meta to discuss the intricacies of designing at scale. Dive deep into the world of design systems, Figma plugins, design tokens, and the challenges of interoperability across multiple platforms.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘Theming in Complex Ecosystems’ with Donnie D’Amato on August 30th. 

Guest

Sriram Ramasubramanian is a Senior Engineering Manager supporting Design Systems at Meta. Sriram has many years of experience building component libraries on several UI frameworks and shipping app-wide design updates. Sriram is currently focused on interoperable design systems at scale. 

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Chris and Robin discuss creating an environment and ecosystem where people are excited to use design systems; and the importance these systems have when encouraging trust and accountability to assist teams with their work.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘Theming in Complex Ecosystems’ with Donnie D’Amato on August 30th.

Guest

Robin Cannon is Executive Director and Head of Design System at J.P. Morgan. He was previously Global Director of Design Systems for IBM iX, and Program Director for IBM's Carbon Design System.

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Christophe and Chris discuss the art of building thriving design system communities. They share their profound insights and experiences, offering valuable perspectives on fostering vibrant and inclusive communities that flourish with creativity and collaboration.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘Introducing Knapsack V4: A Powerful Update for a Future-Ready Experience,’ July 26th at 1 pm (ET) and 10 am (PT).

Guest

Christophe Coutzoukis, manages the Design System Social Club, he's an ADPList mentor, spends tons of time working in design systems and describes himself as a hybrid where he does a lot of design and engineering work. He has over 20 years of work experience, and an extensive network within the design system community. 

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Adam and Chris discuss the power of design systems and their ability to break down barriers between designers and developers.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘Introducing Knapsack V4: A Powerful Update for a Future-Ready Experience,’ July 26th at 1 pm (ET) and 10 am (PT).

Guest

Adam Sedwick is a senior product manager with a 10 year background in design and development focused on modular design and design systems.

His background provides the insight and ability to help teams work better together to close the gap between static designs and production experiences.

At Discovery Education he leads the Design Systems team, working with individual product teams to provide resilient and reusable solutions at scale.

Adam currently resides in Tennessee with his wife and son. When not at the computer he enjoys creative outlets in the physical space including painting, amateur woodworking, and building with LEGO.

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Richard and Chris discuss iterative work and how integral thinking by doing is when progressing work forward. 

View the transcript of this episode here.

Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘AI in Design Systems’ on June 28th, 1 pm (ET) and 10 am (PT).

Guest
Professionally, I express myself through creating new products and businesses, both for myself and others. My first business was designing and printing t-shirts in my parent's garage at 14-yrs old.

Since then I’ve been fortunate enough to play either a founding or leadership role in several companies. To share what I've learned, I speak at conferences, run workshops, write articles, books and am a regular guest on industry podcasts.

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Sheryl and Chris discuss the complexities of the design system space as it involves human behaviours.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘AI in Design Systems’ on June 28th, 1 pm (ET) and 10 am (PT).

Guest
Sheryl Cababa is the author of Closing the Loop: Systems Thinking for Designers. She's a design researcher and strategist and is the Chief Strategy Officer at Substantial, an education-focused research, insights, and development studio based in Seattle. Her practice is focused on systems thinking and equity-centered design, and she's worked with a diverse base of clients including the Gates Foundation, Microsoft, IKEA, and Khan Academy. 

Her focus is on using design to help clients reimagine education.  She also teaches at the University of Washington's Human-Centered Design and Engineering program, helping to introduce systems thinking to the next generation of designers.

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Danielle and Chris discuss the impact designing at scale will have on ROI.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Register here for our upcoming webinar, ‘AI in Design Systems’ on June 28th, 1 pm (ET) and 10 am (PT).

Guest
Danielle MacDonald is a design leader and self-proclaimed design systems geek, with over 15 years of experience in managing digital design from concept to launch. She has a focus on creating digital experiences that strive to meet user needs. Danielle knows how to work within constraints to solve an experience challenge and how to push beyond them. Danielle currently resides in New England with her husband and three daughters. When she isn’t thinking about digital experiences you can find her at a hockey rink, soccer field, lacrosse field or enjoying the beach.

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Chris Deluca and Chris discuss  the significance of prioritizing people in the process of developing design systems. They explore a central question that consistently arises: Whose lives are you striving to enrich and simplify?

View the transcript of this episode here.

Guests
Chris DeLuca is a senior front end web developer from New Jersey with thirteen years of experience serving large organizations with complex needs, such as The Daily Beast, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and now Lullabot. He specializes in design systems and system architecture, focusing on producing maintainable solutions to difficult problems. He is currently nomadic.

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Kendall and Chris discuss how design systems represent the strategic platform for how a company creates product.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Register for our upcoming ‘Design Systems Buying Guide’ webinar on May 24th, 2 pm (EST), hosted by Chris Strahl and Dan Mall.

Guest
Kendall Totten began as a graphic designer & frontend web dev and found Drupal early in her career. She contributed to the frontend for sites such as dallascowboys.com, weather.com & redhat.com. At Red Hat, she helped to champion the OS design system & web components project PatternFly Elements. She is now the Engineering Manager at Pinata and lives in Raleigh, NC.

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

A round table discussion hosted by Chris and Andrew from Knapsack with the Meta Blueprint team, part two.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Guests

Christopher Clare - Director of Product Design

Chris Clare is the Head of Foundation Design for FB App responsible for unifying the app through the Blueprint Design System, driving efficiency for the rest of the design org and giving capacity back to our teams to focus on innovation. Prior to this role, he was the Head of Design for the Communities Product Group at Meta. His team was responsible for helping people build meaningful communities through products like Groups, Events, Profile and Messenger. After he joined the company 7.5 years ago to help rethink the strategy and experience for the Groups Product, it quickly became the top priority for the company who changed their mission to be community driven. In the previous 15 years before Meta, Chris has led Design System and Product teams as multiple Companies, including his time as Creative Director at Motorola (Google) and head of Skype Android and Desktop at Microsoft.

Mitch Johnson - Director, Product Design

Mitch Johnson leads the Blueprint Design System Team for Facebook responsible for building the underlying Design System and infrastructure to enable teams design efficiently on a unified infrastructure, consistently across surfaces, accessible for all users, and to a high bar of people-first quality.

Elizabeth Rifer - Director, Content Design Director

Elizabeth is responsible for developing Facebook’s content architecture. She spent years building Facebook Marketplace and believes in strengthening communities through local commerce. Her mission is to humanize technology so everyone (including her mother) can enjoy it.

Dan Lebowitz - Director, Product Design

Dan Lebowitz is a Product Design Director at Meta leading design system architecture across Facebook and partnering across the company on systems initiatives. Since 2015, Dan has helped lead the design of Meta’s web platform, numerous design systems, and 0-1 products.

Adelle Charles - Product Design Manager

Adelle Charles leads the Design Excellence team for Facebook responsible for our broader Excellence programs, design craft, design tooling and partnering on Blueprint to deliver on design tool efficiency and quality across Facebook.

Andrew Rohman - VP Sales & CS at Knapsack

Andrew leads Knapsack’s customer-facing teams and has experience with dozens of large enterprise Design System implementations. Andrew provides a practical approach to goal setting and fostering both organizational and cultural change when adopting a design system.

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

A round table discussion hosted by Chris and Andrew from Knapsack with the Meta Blueprint team (part one).

View the transcript of this episode here.

Guests

Christopher Clare - Director of Product Design

Chris Clare is the Head of Foundation Design for FB App responsible for unifying the app through the Blueprint Design System, driving efficiency for the rest of the design org and giving capacity back to our teams to focus on innovation. Prior to this role, he was the Head of Design for the Communities Product Group at Meta. His team was responsible for helping people build meaningful communities through products like Groups, Events, Profile and Messenger. After he joined the company 7.5 years ago to help rethink the strategy and experience for the Groups Product, it quickly became the top priority for the company who changed their mission to be community driven. In the previous 15 years before Meta, Chris has led Design System and Product teams as multiple Companies, including his time as Creative Director at Motorola (Google) and head of Skype Android and Desktop at Microsoft.

Mitch Johnson - Director, Product Design

Mitch Johnson leads the Blueprint Design System Team for Facebook responsible for building the underlying Design System and infrastructure to enable teams design efficiently on a unified infrastructure, consistently across surfaces, accessible for all users, and to a high bar of people-first quality.

Elizabeth Rifer - Director, Content Design Director

Elizabeth is responsible for developing Facebook’s content architecture. She spent years building Facebook Marketplace and believes in strengthening communities through local commerce. Her mission is to humanize technology so everyone (including her mother) can enjoy it. 

Dan Lebowitz - Director, Product Design

Dan Lebowitz is a Product Design Director at Meta leading design system architecture across Facebook and partnering across the company on systems initiatives. Since 2015, Dan has helped lead the design of Meta’s web platform, numerous design systems, and 0-1 products.

Adelle Charles - Product Design Manager

Adelle Charles leads the Design Excellence team for Facebook responsible for our broader Excellence programs, design craft, design tooling and partnering on Blueprint to deliver on design tool efficiency and quality across Facebook.

Andrew Rohman - VP Sales & CS at Knapsack

Andrew leads Knapsack’s customer-facing teams and has experience with dozens of large enterprise Design System implementations. Andrew provides a practical approach to goal setting and fostering both organizational and cultural change when adopting a design system.

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Kaelig, Darren, and Chris talk tokens and code: “Using a whole different type of brain.”

View the transcript of this episode here.

Want to hear more? Register for Knapsack’s upcoming talking tokens webinar here.

Guests

Kaelig Deloumeau-Prigent, Principal Software Engineer at Netlify

Founder of the Design Tokens W3C Community Group, providing open standards for products and design tools to share design system foundations at scale.

Darren Simons, Senior Product Designer, Design Systems at Mulesoft

Digital Product Designer who is able to untangle complicated requirements, build design systems from the ground up, and incorporate them into the design workflow. I bring design and technology together to craft elegant user interfaces with an emphasis on the end-user experience.

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Amber, Taylor, and Chris talk tokens; the pros and cons.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Guests

Amber Stickel, Principal Design Technologist at Intuit

Front-end designer and developer with a passion for creating modular, reusable, and flexible interfaces and systems. With multidisciplinary knowledge and tools in hand, I’m hoping to improve the web one experience at a time.

Taylor Cashdan, Design Systems Lead at Mayo Clinic

Multidisciplinary creative and community builder that's passionate about people, design, and all the intersections in between. I bring to the table a burning desire to collaborate with teams tasked with creating exceptional work for people who give a shit.

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Morgane and Chris discuss the idea that many design systems pitch themselves as a technical asset. However, design systems can extend past this notion to offer business value,  patterns, and ROI.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Guest

Morgane Peng is a Managing Director and Head of Design at Societe Generale Corporate & Investment Banking where she builds products for start-ups, corporates and financial institutions. Outside of work, she is a mentor, conference speaker and also contributes to an indie video game crowdfunded on Kickstarter. You can find Morgane on Twitter as @morganepeng and on Medium.

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Evan and Chris discuss source of truth and how it is linked most importantly to overall user experience opposed to just design or code.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Guest

Evan Lovely is the co-founder and Head of Product & Engineering at Knapsack. Evan was previously the CTO at Basalt Inc and a software architect at Phase2. He has a passion for developing well-designed, scalable software solutions and extensive experience in leading technical teams and projects. 

Evan is certified as a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer and as a CompTIA A+ Certified Computer Technician.

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Jennie and Chris discuss following the path of least resistance when building design systems. It must feel natural and easier for the people using the system, so much so, it doesn’t make sense to continue with old habits. 

View the transcript of this episode here.

Guest

Jennie Yip is a hybrid design engineer with a heart for elegant user interfaces, simple user experiences, and beautifully crafted code. Loves building scalable design systems while helping designers and engineers work better together.  She’s currently Principal Design Architect at Atlassian, reimagining Atlassian Design System. You can find Jennie musing about design systems or her bebe component on Twitter @jenniesyip.

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Avery Oldt and Chris discuss the importance of scaling ideas, systematic thinking, and cross-team integration for product delight and success.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Guest
Avery Oldt is Head of Design & Research at Amazon for Amazon Fashion. His past work includes leading design, product, and engineering teams at MTV, Restoration Hardware, Louis Vuitton, Booking.com, and BNP Paribas. Over the past 25 years and across various industries, he's found his sweet spot at the intersection of design and technology, creating space for great products to emerge from diverse teams and positive culture.

You can find Avery on LinkedIn or walking in the redwoods of Marin County, California. 

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Jack McCloy and Chris discuss the purpose of a design system and its ability to iterate faster, build better, more accessible, consistent products. Not only saving money but achieving outcomes you wouldn’t practically be able to do without a systems approach.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Guest

Jack McCloy is an Engineering Manager at Amplitude, where he leads the frontend infrastructure / design system team. He and his team develop architectural patterns, tooling, and systems that help engineers build and iterate more rapidly and designers scale their work. 

Jack also angel invests in companies working on dev/design tools, data tools, infrastructure, and b2b SasS products. You can follow / connect with him on Twitter or LinkedIn. 

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Adekunle and Chris cover a number of topics spanning from the importance of flexibility, connection, communication, collaboration and designing systems to ultimately solve problems for its users. 

View the transcript of this episode, here.

Guest

Adekunle Oduye (Add-eh-koon-lay Oh-due-yay) is currently building design systems at Plaid. Outside of work, he is a coach/mentor, conference speaker and co-host of the Code and Pixels podcast. 

You can learn more about him on his website (https://www.adekunleoduye.com), linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/adekunleoduye), or twitter (https://twitter.com/adekunleoduye).

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Jen, Donnie and Chris discuss how design systems reflect the people a part of it, who use it and who maintain it; and the importance of collaboration, that systems are built for and with people.

View the transcript of this episode, here. 

Guest

Jen is a product designer and educator from NYC. She’s currently a Senior Experience Designer at Signet Jewelers, exploring ways to expand and improve their Amor Design System. You can find Jen on LinkedIn and jennifer.damato.design.

Donnie is a design systems architect, adjunct faculty of UX curriculum, and armchair philosopher from New York. Author of Gridless Design. You can find Donnie on LinkedIn and donnie.damato.design.

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Michael and Chris discuss how systems have always been prominent when solving problems within designs and the importance they have in connecting and enabling everyone to remain consistent along the user journey. 

Donald Judd - 100 untitled works in mill aluminum, 1982–1986

View the transcript of this episode, here.

Guests

Michael Jeter is the Creative Director at Zapier, a no code automation tool that connects work apps you use daily. At Zapier, Jeter leads a brand team of twelve fantastic creatives. 

Jeter was previously a Creative Director at Dropbox, and has worked with brands like Google, Facebook, Pinterest, etc. to help tell meaningful brand stories. 

Jeter is based in Austin, Texas where he eats entirely too much queso.

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Francesco and Chris discuss the importance of foundational concepts like code, that help secure buy-in and  prove value within an organization. Thus, supporting Francesco's current thoughts that building on existing design systems proves to be more viable for his work at Klarna.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Guests

Francesco Cutolo is a Design Manager (currently leading the design system) at Klarna. Born in Pompeii,  he moved to Sweden after spending 10+ years building digital products for desktop and mobile systems across Europe.

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Tyce and Smith discuss with Chris the concept of local systems and the focus on building areas within the business that extend past basics and build on core components that create variance. 

View the transcript of this episode here.

Guests

Tyce Clee is an Engineering Manager working on Encore, the design system for Spotify. They’re a big fan of arcade games, travel, and emo karaoke nights.

Smith Schwartz is a Design Manager working on Ads Design System, an Encore local system for Spotify. Before tech, she designed and implemented IRL experiences for museums like The Art Institute of Chicago and Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies.

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Todd and Chris discuss shipping experiences, the experience being the product, and the math behind building a well-oiled design system. 

View the transcript of this episode here.

Guest

Todd is the Chief Product Officer of Remote where he leads all things Product, including the Product Management and Design teams. Todd has led Product, Design, and P&L at several market-leading companies including Atlassian, Automattic, Auctane, and IBM. He is passionate about systematic approaches to increase the speed and quality of product development. He speaks and writes about product management, design, and remote work regularly. He has 6 kids, too many volunteering/service projects, and an obsession with Texas bbq and spicy Indian curries.

Host

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Nick and Chris discuss how 75% of production design jobs are going to go away, and what will replace this space. Ultimately, how do designers become proactive vs. reactive in an ever changing environment?

View the transcript of this episode here.

Guest
Nick Hahn, is the founder of Creative Liberation, a coaching and design consultancy. He has spent 20 years riding the rise of the Design industry through agencies and inhouse at IBM, InVision, and Meta.

Nick now specializes in the human side of Design Systems – governance, contribution, and adoption models, all while guiding the deep cultural changes needed to ensure long term success of design systems.
You can find him on LinkedIn and at creativelib.us. 

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Dana Lawson and Chris discuss the future of design systems as it relates to the relationship between engineering leaders and design counterparts. 

View the transcript of this episode here.

Guest
Dana Lawson is Senior Vice President of Engineering at Netlify overseeing Engineering and Support. Previously she has led and grown teams at GitHub, Heptio, InVision, and New Relic. She has over 20+ years of experience and has led many different teams and has worn many hats to compliment a product’s lifecycle. With a true passion for people, she brings this mix of technology and fun to her leadership style.  

Host
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Kathryn Gonzalez and Chris discuss the evolution of design systems from centralized to localized and how DoorDash’s design system team is evolving as their system matures.

Guest:
Kathryn Gonzalez is the head of design infrastructure at DoorDash, where she leads design systems design, design systems engineering, accessibility, and prototyping. She was the first designer and front-end engineer at DoorDash and has been living at the intersection of design and engineering for her entire career. She loves startups, sports, and fashion and is a proud queer woman of color from the South.

Host:
Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Evan Lovely (Head of Product & Engineering), Chris Bloom (Principal Front-End Engineer), Jake Love (Senior Solutions Engineer), and Brittany Smart (Solutions Engineer) join Chris to discuss the state of design systems today. Listen as the Knapsack team shares hot takes on everything from the lesser known elements of successful design systems to the role vulnerability should play in your system. 

Host:

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

View the transcript for this episode here. 

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Stephen Gates and Chris discuss the realities of design system leadership, unconventional sources of inspiration, and the impact of design on society. 

Guest: With over 20 years of experience, Stephen is a global design leader who has built world-class teams at organizations that integrate research and data with human-centered design methods to drive business impact. He’s helped companies like Starwood Hotels, Citi, InVision, and WW scale their design practice and grow successful teams. Stephen is also the host of the award-winning podcast, The Crazy One, which features in-depth explorations of issues that matter to creatives, including leadership, creativity, and career development and innovation. You can find Stephen through his website, on Twitter or Instagram as @sdgates and on LinkedIn.

Host: Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

View the transcript for this episode here. 

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Sponsored by Knapsack, the design system platform that brings teams together. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Vojtech Miksu (Software Engineer at Uber) and Evan Lovely (Chief Architect at Knapsack) join Chris to discuss the gap between a frontend developer’s code base and what actually gets shipped, the next-gen tool (Ladle) Vojtech created to address this, and ultimately helping developers get closer to what end users experience.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Meghan Rosatelli and Saejin Choi join Chris to discuss transitioning multiple design systems into one, shifting system consumers’ mindset from working with a local system to working with a global system, and using play to drive excitement and adoption of a design system.

Guest: Meghan Rosatelli is the Director of Design for Capital One’s enterprise design system. She also teaches courses in digital arts at the University of Richmond. You can find Meghan on LinkedIn.

Guest: Saejin is currently the Experience Lead for Capital One's design system. His previous life at Capital One was leading the Digital Payments and Commerce design team. You can find Saejin on LinkedIn, or via his years-long dormant Twitter account @saejinchoi.

Host: Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor: Knapsack unites your design, code, and content in a central source of truth for your entire product team. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Nick, Ellis, and Chris discuss how News UK’s design system, NewsKit, united multiple disparate brands in a central source of truth, and how infrastructure management has helped scale design and engineering practices.

Guest: Ellis Capon is a Senior Product Manager at News UK, who looks after the NewsKit design system amongst other products within the NewsKit ecosystem. You can find Ellis on Twitter as @ellis_capon and on LinkedIn.

Guest: Nick Dorman is Head of Design Systems at News UK, a design leader with over 15 years of experience in publishing. You can find Nick on Twitter as @Nickdorman1 and on LinkedIn.

Host: Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.Sponsor: Knapsack unites your design, code, and content in a central source of truth for your entire product team. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Curious about the fun parts of design systems? Check out this episode of the Design Systems Podcast featuring Davy Fung, co-host of design systems podcast Design System Office Hours,  who joined Chris to talk about working creatively within design system constraints, common structures for design systems, and building a Jedi Council of Design System Advocates. 

Guest: Davy Fung formerly led design systems across Disney+, Hulu, and Star+, now at Meta working on design systems for Meta Business Suite. You can find Davy on Twitter as @cobradave, his podcast Design System Office Hours, and on LinkedIn.

Host: Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor: Knapsack unites your design, code, and content in a central source of truth for your entire product team. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

View the transcript of this episode here.

Una, Chris, and Chris talk about production-level code, the accessibility of Web3, and the new sliced bread of the web. Prepare for Una to blow your mind with how dynamic CSS can be.

Guest: Una Kravets is ​​a Brooklyn-based developer who's making the web more styleable as a Developer Advocate at Google Chrome. Previously, she was the Director of Product Design at Bustle Digital Group and worked on building maintainable design systems as a UI Engineer at both DigitalOcean and IBM Design. She co-hosts two web development podcasts: Toolsday and the CSS Podcast, as well as the web video series Designing in the Browser. She creates technical illustrations called Dev Doodles, does brush lettering and calligraphy, and has started technical meetup groups in Washington, DC and Austin, TX. You can check out her website for more about her work and projects, or learn a thing or two about code from her Twitter.

Guest: Chris Bloom is a full-stack developer passionate about design systems, component-driven development, and many, many JavaScript frameworks. You can find Chris on Twitter as @illepic and on LinkedIn.

Host: Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor: Knapsack unites your design, code, and content in a central source of truth for your entire product team. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

View the transcript for this episode.

Corey and Chris discuss how design systems represent an organization’s lifeblood, the sisyphean parts of design system maintenance, and what stands out about design system culture at Compass.

Guest: Corey is the Head of Design Systems at Compass. He has made a career out of building and leading design teams through complicated enterprise challenges to create experiences that customers love. He has years of experience within agencies, consulting firms, and in-house organizations leading design teams, implementing enterprise-level design systems, and directing UX. He believes the best products are built by diverse teams and curious leaders. You can find Corey at his website, on Twitter as @BlankSky, and on LinkedIn.

Host: Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor: Knapsack unites your design, code, and content in a central source of truth for your entire product team. Design once, build once, use everywhere. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

View the transcript for this episode.

Last week Knapsack announced Patterns, the leadership-focused design systems retreat. Chris and Ryan Peterson, Knapsack's VP Marketing, and Chris talk about the what, why, and who behind Patterns, an invite-only retreat for 50 engineering, product, and design leaders. Curious about why it's focused on leader-level topics? Wondering if it will help you get more investment in your design system? List in to learn about what we're planning—and why you (or your manager) should go.

Ryan Peterson is VP of Marketing at Knapsack and producer of @TheDSPod. Ryan has spent the last seven years working with design systems and the teams that use them. You can find Ryan on Twitter as @ryanptrsn and on LinkedIn.

Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor: Knapsack unites your design, code, and content in a central source of truth for your entire product team. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

Read the transcript here.

Matt, Veda, and Chris discuss how Matt and Veda have incorporated accessibility and inclusion into one of the world’s most well-known design systems, Spectrum. Matt shares his experience getting accessibility principles into Spectrum on the ground floor, and Veda discusses how inclusion fits into design systems.

Guests: Matt May is the Head of Inclusive Design at Adobe. His work includes integrating inclusive design practices across every aspect of the Adobe user experience, training and mentoring the Adobe Design team, and advocating principles of accessibility and inclusive design to the public at large. You can find Matt on Twitter as @mattmay and on LinkedIn.

Veda Rosier is the Principal Product Manager, Design Systems at Adobe. She ​​is an experienced product manager with a strong bias towards action, and a self-directed expert in defining business needs and feasible solutions to support strategic goals. Veda is committed to utilizing best practices to build excellent products while remaining flexible and sensitive to the maturity and resources of the organization. You can find Veda on Twitter as @VedaRosier and LinkedIn.

Host: Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor: Knapsack is a design system platform rooted in code for shipping consistent apps in half the time. Design once, build once, use everywhere. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

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Wayfair, the ubiquitous online retailer, is more than just wayfair.com: the company owns Perigold, Joss & Main, and Birch Lane. Neva, Rogin, and Chris discuss how Wayfair united three disparate design systems into one; the gradual process of building a holistic design system team; achieving cross-functional design system adoption, and the merits of overthinking.

Guests: Neva Corbo-Hudak is the Product Design Lead at Wayfair. She’s a multidisciplinary designer passionate about crafting user-centered experiences. She is invigorated by the challenge of making complex information understandable, and particularly excited by multifaceted design projects that require a high level of problem solving. 

You can find Neva on Twitter as @nevach_tweets, and on LinkedIn.

Rogin Farrer is the Staff Engineer at Wayfair. He’s a pattern library maintainer of Wayfair's design systems with a focus on enterprise software. Builds scalable React UI components with accessibility in mind. 

You can find Rogin at his personal website, on Twitter as @roginfarrer, and on LinkedIn.

Host: Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor: Knapsack is a design system platform rooted in code for shipping consistent apps in half the time. Design once, build once, use everywhere. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

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Mike and Chris discuss design systems at the enterprise level, the history of systems, and UX design at the beginning of the internet. 

Guest: Mike Bowser is the Design Director, Design Systems at Vista. He is a UX/UI designer, design team leader, and educator with expertise in design systems, UX research, and UI design. His recent focus is closing the gap between how we concept and design and how products are actually built. He’s also interested in the growing opportunities for automation in the future of UX design and design systems.

You can find Mike on Twitter as @mikebowser and on LinkedIn.

Huge thanks to Jeff Yaus, Emily Mills, and Sujeet Jaiswal from Vista, and Fabricio Teixeira and the team at Work&Co for their contributions to the Vista design language and design system.

Host: Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor: Knapsack is a design system platform rooted in code for shipping consistent apps in half the time. Design once, build once, use everywhere. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

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Zach, Aaron, and Chris discuss the commonalities between design systems and products, as well as how a product-driven mindset can help your design systems achieve new levels of enterprise adoption and scale.

Guest: Zach Hendershot is a Managing Partner at Crux Digital. He is a leader with a diverse background of building and growing digital products within startups and large enterprises. He's passionate about scaling, reusability, and great customer experiences everywhere, and has worked to find new ways to bridge the gap between great customer experience and great digital products. He's led cross-functional digital teams at Charter Spectrum, Ogilvy, and others. You can find Zach on LinkedIn.

Guest:  Aaron Stone is the Founder of Crux Digital. He is an experienced technology leader, full-stack application developer, and UX evangelist with a focus on user-driven digital products, insightful interaction design, and scalable, high-quality code. He has been the technical architect for enterprise design systems for Transamerica, Charter Spectrum, and GE Renewable Energy as well as helping teams deliver the complex technology ecosystems that surround them. He built Crux Digital around an amazingly talented group of design-minded engineers who have collectively been responsible for world-class digital product delivery for the Fortune 1000 for the past four years. You can find him on LinkedIn.

Host: Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor: Knapsack is a design system platform rooted in code for shipping consistent apps in half the time. Design once, build once, use everywhere. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

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Sit tight—this is a long one! Stephen Gates and Chris discuss the real value of design systems, what designers and football players have in common, and how to apply design methodology to day-to-day work.

Guest: Stephen Gates is Senior Vice President of Omni-channel Product Design for WW. In this role, he is responsible for the design of WW’s end-to-end member experience across all digital, virtual, and physical touchpoints, to create a cohesive wellness experience and help unify members’ needs across channels.

With over 20 years of experience, Stephen is a global design leader who has built world-class teams at organizations that integrate research and data with human-centered design methods to drive business impact. Prior to joining WW in February 2021, Stephen was the Head Design Evangelist at InVision, where he developed award-winning global advertising campaigns and innovative digital experiences for clients such as American Airlines, W Hotels, Disney, ExxonMobil, Acura, Old Navy, Nationwide Insurance, Verizon, Subaru, and many more. He has also held key design leadership roles at Citi, Starwood Hotels, and McCann Erickson. Stephen’s work has received recognition at over 150 international award shows including honors for Cannes Cyber Lions, Webby Awards, and the Web Awards. His work has also been featured in 10 Apple keynotes.

Stephen is also the host of the award-winning podcast, The Crazy One, which features in-depth explorations of issues that matter to creatives, including leadership, creativity, and career development and innovation. He has also been named one of the most talented and influential creatives working today by HOW Magazine.

Host: Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor: Knapsack is a design system platform rooted in code for shipping consistent apps in half the time. Design once, build once, use everywhere. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

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Check out Stephen’s first episode on the Design System Podcast.

Gina and Chris discuss the importance of real-deal content in your designs, defining “good design” for your company, and how to set effective, meaningful KPIs for design work.

Guest: Gina is the Principal Analyst, Design and Accessibility, at Forrester Research. Her research focuses on experience design organizations, scaling design, accessibility, and inclusive design. You can find Gina on Forrester’s blog, on Twitter as @ginabhawalkar, and on LinkedIn.

Host: Chris Strahl is co-founder and CEO of Knapsack, host of @TheDSPod, DnD DM, and occasional river guide. You can find Chris on Twitter as @chrisstrahl and on LinkedIn.

Sponsor: Knapsack is a design system platform rooted in code for shipping consistent apps in half the time. Design once, build once, use everywhere. Learn more at knapsack.cloud.

View the transcript for this episode.