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In our recent penultimate session of Design System in 90 Days, a few students asked about other resources for learning about different aspects of design systems. Here are my gotos that I often point people to:
Design systems overview
Totally biased, but start with our free “Make Design Systems People Want to Use.”
Ronnie McBride gives a fantastic rundown of design system basics in Hands-On with Design Systems.
Figma design systems
Joey Banks has a plethora of resources. Level Up with Figma is an excellent group cohort, and Joey also has paid individualized training sessions that I can’t recommend highly enough. When I wanted to learn more about Figma design systems, I paid Joey to teach me.
Molly Hellmuth runs the incredible Design System Bootcamp, a 5-week Bootcamp to build a design system & become a Figma expert. Her UI Prep is also a great resource, featuring email newsletters, UI kits, and more.
Matt D. Smith’s Shift Nudge is an end-to-end program to help you learn interface design. It’s not specifically a design system course, but it covers many of the things design system experts need to know.
Figma Academy 2.0 by Michael Riddering is one of the fastest ways to master Figma. You can also get Tommy Geoco’s Making UX Decisions course before the end of the year as part of Tommy & Ridd’s how_to_think && how_to_do bundle.
Design systems in code
Design Systems for Developers by the Storybook team is a free guide that teaches developers how to transform component libraries into design systems and set up the production infrastructure used by leading frontend teams.
Our free How to Use a Design System in Code course doesn’t show you how to set up a design system from scratch in code, but it does show you how to work with an existing one (Chakra UI).
If you do want to know how to create a package-managed design system in React from scratch, check out our Design Systems 101 course, now 30% off until the end of the year if you use code HOLIDAYS2024 at checkout.
Check out Design Systems with Storybook, v2 by Steve Kinney on Front-End Masters to learn how to build scalable component libraries and design systems with Storybook.
Not specifically a design system course, but many design systems nowadays are built with React or Web Components, so learning more about these technologies in general will help you get increase your proficiency in design systems. I recommend Wes Bos’ React for Beginners and Scott Jehl’s Web Components Demystified.
Design tokens
Ismaïl Hamila & Adrien Gibrat’s The Design Tokens Book is beautiful! It’s written in French, so you may have to wait for a translation if you don’t read French.
Subatomic is a design tokens course taught by Brad Frost and Ian Frost. It’s available for pre-order now.
Into Design Systems and Tokens Studio are hosting an online workshop on The Future of Design Tokens on Wednesday January 15.
Accessibility
Anna Cook has the course on accessibility and design systems in Auditing Design Systems for Accessibility.
Though not exclusively about design systems, Practical Accessibility by Sara Soueidan has so many different tips and nuances about accessibility that will level up any design system team.
Books
A classic canon of conventional and non-conventional design system books—if I do say so myself—that I continue to go back to frequently.
Design Systems by Alla Kholmatova
Atomic Design, by Brad Frost
Expressive Design Systems, by Yesenia Perez-Cruz
Laying the Foundations, by Andrew Couldwel
Design That Scales, by yours truly
Thinking in Systems, by Donella Meadows
Design Systems Handbook by InVision
Practical UI Patterns for Design Systems by Diana MacDonald
Managing Chaos by Lisa Welchman
Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture by Kim Cameron and Robert Quinn
How Systems Form and How Systems Break by Chiang H. Ren
The Vision Driven Leader by Michael Hyatt
Badass by Kathy Sierra
Building a Second Brain by Tiago Forte
Podcasts
Davy Fung and PJ Onori run the longstanding Design System Office Hours, which is always worth a listen.
Elyse Holladay is launching a brand new design system podcast called On Theme, where she’ll be exploring what is (and isn’t) working for design systems.
Knapsack is 124 episodes deep into their long-running The Design Systems Podcast. Don’t miss it.
Zeroheight has a slew of new design systems podcasts for you to check out, like Back to School with Amy Hupe & Geri Reid, Design Systems WTF with Michelle Chin and Luke Murphy, and more.
Design System Practice & Strategy
Our Design System in 90 Days cohort is a extensive deep dive into what it takes to set up a design system practice. Our next cohort starts on February 11, and registration opens up on January 6. To register early, use code HOLIDAYS2024 at checkout for 30% off (which ends up taking almost $1,200 off)!
Into Design Systems and Nathan Curtis are running their Design System Planning and Process workshop again on Monday, January 27.
Join Ben Callahan’s The Question for deep design systems conversations every week. Ben also has a great Enterprise Design Systems Management course that gives you strategies for leading, creating, and maturing your organization's design system beyond the technical perspective.
That should keep you busy! Happy holidays, and enjoy!
