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Category: Design Ops
Category: Design Ops
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Brief Summary:
A discussion around the "Composable Web Architecture" theory:
1. Structure: Commoditized and automated (Relume).
The convergence of Figma, Relume, and Webflow (with GSAP) can be organizationally a fundamental shift in how product design teams generate design artifacts and operate, even as AI is able to generate pieces of the puzzle.
Here is why this ecosystem could be a great platform/workflow/tool set for whomever interacts with the digital product design.
1. Shared Definitions Across not only Teams, but Organizations, Disciplines, and Clients
Friction points exist in any digital product design project around the "translation gap" between not only what a designer draws and what a developer builds, but all along the iteration process.
* Old Way: Iterate on what "medium spacing" means with three different people.
* New Way: We share a common library language from the start via chosen tools and methodology, Even if it means making it a thing.
When Design and Dev share the same definitions (components, naming conventions, token structures), the conversation shifts from "fixing errors" to "polishing the experience."
2. Reinventing the Wheel
There is no creative value in redesigning a standard button or a responsive grid for the 100th time. Even if AI can do parts of it. There’s value in possibly the team learning together and onboarding at the same time, but it would take so long going this route. (That’s another post.)
By using a system like Relume + Figma, we utilize pre-built, industry-standard patterns. I am a huge fan of using industry standard patterns, especially for huge dispersed teams. We get the structure, and language and design system bare bones to iterate with. This allows us to spend 90% of our energy on the unique work and execution —rather than the plumbing, onboarding, interviewing, educating. That all still will happen but with a library of shared definitions to help everyone understand each other faster.
Brief Summary:
A discussion around the "Composable Web Architecture" theory:
1. Structure: Commoditized and automated (Relume).
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In the creative world, we often start with the "blank canvas." But in digital product design, a blank canvas is often a liability. It leads to solving problems that have already been solved.
The convergence of Figma, Relume, and Webflow (with GSAP) can be organizationally a fundamental shift in how product design teams generate design artifacts and operate, even as AI is able to generate pieces of the puzzle.
Here is why this ecosystem could be a great platform/workflow/tool set for whomever interacts with the digital product design.
1. Shared Definitions Across not only Teams, but Organizations, Disciplines, and Clients
Friction points exist in any digital product design project around the "translation gap" between not only what a designer draws and what a developer builds, but all along the iteration process.
* Old Way: Iterate on what "medium spacing" means with three different people.
* New Way: We share a common library language from the start via chosen tools and methodology, Even if it means making it a thing.
When Design and Dev share the same definitions (components, naming conventions, token structures), the conversation shifts from "fixing errors" to "polishing the experience."
2. Reinventing the Wheel
There is no creative value in redesigning a standard button or a responsive grid for the 100th time. Even if AI can do parts of it. There’s value in possibly the team learning together and onboarding at the same time, but it would take so long going this route. (That’s another post.)
By using a system like Relume + Figma, we utilize pre-built, industry-standard patterns. I am a huge fan of using industry standard patterns, especially for huge dispersed teams. We get the structure, and language and design system bare bones to iterate with. This allows us to spend 90% of our energy on the unique work and execution —rather than the plumbing, onboarding, interviewing, educating. That all still will happen but with a library of shared definitions to help everyone understand each other faster.
It still does take understanding and learning and everyone comes at it with their own experience and preferences and methods. But, that’s why this system was created.
It lives in a space with a lot of great design systems, and it’s interesting because they were built at same time to solve different things. Any design system at it’s core shares the accessibility needs and so there’s a base commonality. But, if you’re starting from nothing and building an agency level design (brand, motion, design language, multidisciplinary teams, across medias, campaigns, etc) , and there’s no current organization structure in place… why not leverage one. That scenario happens all the time. Especially with startups.
3. Faster Onboarding (Velocity)
How quickly can another team member jump into the project and actually be useful?
* If your file is a mess of unnamed layers and custom hacks, it takes days.
* If you use a standardized system with clear tokens, an expectation of shared design patterns, same tools, it cuts down some of the complexity. There’s a threshold that is different for everyone of course, but, theoretically, sharing understanding of how to execute and how to organize it can speed things along by giving everyone the same sandbox with the same toys. Now with contextual AI getting more useful, and AI in general able to output code, giving a prompt with a high value keyword or even your JSON design tokens, can be useful.
A structured ecosystem creates a "self-documenting" workflow. A new designer can open the file, see the system, and understand the underlying (still unique and complex) structure but be able to approach it methodically (using language understood by others in the chain) and start contributing immediately without needing a handbook to understand how the site was built.
4. A Programmatic Source of Truth (even as it constantly changes)
This is the most important concept for brand consistency.
We need a Single Source of Truth—not a PDF brand guide that gets ignored, but a programmatic JSON file that pushes values to every platform.
* The Result: When you update your brand's "Primary Blue," it updates on the website, the app, and the ads simultaneously.
* The Benefit: For the effort, it can offer consistent answers that can stop a project if they aren’t readily available. It can with discipline and wide adoption ensure that the design aesthetic remains consistent across every single touchpoint, in theory, depending on the setup, automatically.
The Bottom Line
Tools like contextual AI and GSAP are exciting and deliver pro UI motion, but the real revolution is organizational. It’s about building a machine that handles the repetitive work so that the creators are free to iterate and execute with less friction using a common language that is also programmatic, taxonomic, client-first, atomic and independently verifiable, logical, intuitive, and maintained.
3. Faster Onboarding (Velocity)
How quickly can another team member jump into the project and actually be useful?
* If your file is a mess of unnamed layers and custom hacks, it takes days.
* If you use a standardized system with clear tokens, an expectation of shared design patterns, same tools, it cuts down some of the complexity. There’s a threshold that is different for everyone of course, but, theoretically, sharing understanding of how to execute and how to organize it can speed things along by giving everyone the same sandbox with the same toys. Now with contextual AI getting more useful, and AI in general able to output code, giving a prompt with a high value keyword or even your JSON design tokens, can be useful.
A structured ecosystem creates a "self-documenting" workflow. A new designer can open the file, see the system, and understand the underlying (still unique and complex) structure but be able to approach it methodically (using language understood by others in the chain) and start contributing immediately without needing a handbook to understand how the site was built.
4. A Programmatic Source of Truth (even as it constantly changes)
This is the most important concept for brand consistency.
We need a Single Source of Truth—not a PDF brand guide that gets ignored, but a programmatic JSON file that pushes values to every platform.
* The Result: When you update your brand's "Primary Blue," it updates on the website, the app, and the ads simultaneously.
* The Benefit: For the effort, it can offer consistent answers that can stop a project if they aren’t readily available. It can with discipline and wide adoption ensure that the design aesthetic remains consistent across every single touchpoint, in theory, depending on the setup, automatically.
The Bottom Line
Tools like contextual AI and GSAP are exciting and deliver pro UI motion, but the real revolution is organizational. It’s about building a machine that handles the repetitive work so that the creators are free to iterate and execute with less friction using a common language that is also programmatic, taxonomic, client-first, atomic and independently verifiable, logical, intuitive, and maintained.