Building a Design System from Scratch in 2025
How to create a token-based design system that works across web and mobile — from color primitives to component APIs.
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Jordan Lee·March 25, 2025·10 min readA design system is not a component library. That distinction matters. A component library is an implementation; a design system is a shared language between designers and engineers. Getting this right from the start saves months of rework.
Start with tokens, not components
Design tokens are the atomic values your system is built on — colors, spacing, typography, shadows. Define them in a format that can be consumed by any platform:
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