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A 2026 follow-up to the original 2019 post on modular design systems. What held up, what changed, and what we'd write if we were starting today. Covers design tokens, design engineers, and the quiet death of the design systems team.
The pressure to learn to code is persistent bad advice. What you actually need is literacy, not fluency — and the list of things worth learning is shorter than you think.
The choice between a design partner and a senior in-house hire isn't a tradeoff between two versions of the same role. They do meaningfully different jobs. Here's how to decide which one your team actually needs.
The discourse has collapsed into either 'AI eats design' or 'AI is nothing new.' Both are wrong. What actually changes, what doesn't, and how designers should adjust.
Most design principles are too vague to decide anything. Here's how to write principles that actually get used — starting from real decisions instead of aspirational words.
Accessibility is not something you add on top of a finished design. It is not a toggle. It is not a checklist you complete at the end. Accessibility is a quality of the design itself.
