Principles help you align when designing for any project. The following are some principles that can help jumpstart your organization but ideally they should be tailored over time to your companies vision and values.
Our Purpose
To make design and ideation inclusive, continual, and focused on problem-solving (so that we can build better products, faster, together)
Our Principles
Our principles define our way of working and the artifacts that we create. These are designed to be applicable to any project, process, or team to ensure we move faster together.
Modular not customizable
Smaller, reusable components that can be used in multiple ways to create more complex organisms are preferable to huge symbols with many different overrides and variants. We aim to be simple and flexible instead of complex and complicated.
One thing in many ways
Each design has multiple layers. Processes have to work across multiple teams and projects. Components have a visual layer, a front-end and back-end layer, a content layer, a data layer. Screens and flows must accommodate accessibility standards and different languages. A design that only works for one of these is not complete.
Test before investing
We choose to be more intentional and purposeful upfront to ensure we can move quickly and confidently once a final solution is reached. We focus on quality to ensure we design a strong foundation.
A living thing
Living things are successful only when carefully cultivated, supported by sustainable processes, and allowed to grow over time. We treat our design system and components as living things that will evolve and change with our product. Nothing is permanent and no single person owns its success.
Universal principles of design
Unity
Harmony
Balance
Rhythm
Emphasis
Elements of design
Line
Color
Shape
Form
Pattern
Space
Texture