On Theme: Design Systems in Depth
Elyse Holladay
Exploring how successful design systems get built, maintained, and deliver impact for their product teams. Go deeper than tokens and get more detailed than "it depends". Expect aha moments, actionable insights, thoughtful discussions, and spicy takes from accomplished design system practitioners. Hosted by Elyse Holladay.
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Top 10 On Theme: Design Systems in Depth Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best On Theme: Design Systems in Depth episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to On Theme: Design Systems in Depth for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite On Theme: Design Systems in Depth episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
Creativity and design system leadership in the age of AI, with Natalya Shelburne — #17
On Theme: Design Systems in Depth
05/12/25 • 58 min
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Chat, this is the last episode of season one! Thank you for listening and supporting the show! There's no better way to wrap up, IMO, than an optimistic and curious exploration of what it means to be a creative human in an increasingly technological world.
So to wrap up season one, Natalya Shelburne joins me to explore how design leaders can cultivate creativity in an era of rapid technological and organizational change. Drawing from her degree and research in creativity, Natalya shares insights on fostering innovation, overcoming fear-driven management styles, and why embracing artistic thinking is essential for teams navigating the age of AI. She explains the importance of creating safe environments to unlock creative potential and why outdated corporate structures simply can't compete. Plus, flow state, goats, expansive thinking, and hobbies.
Links & References
- Natalya Shelburne on LinkedIn
- GitHub Primer
- Natalya's talk at Beyond Tellerand, Channeling Chaos: Role of the Artist in the Age of AI
- Twilio's Paste design system assistant
- Research and books mentioned:
- Lev Vygotsky on cognitive development
- Lauren Sosniak on phases of learning
- Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's classic book Flow and an overview
- Oliver Burkeman's Four Thousand Weeks
- The Extended Mind
💖 On Theme is a brand new podcast, so if you like what you're hearing, please hit subscribe and sign up at designsystemsontheme.com!
🎨🎟️ Into Design Systems is May 25-28
Get your ticket at intodesignsystems.com/onthemeInto Design Systems is back with their annual virtual conference, May 28-30, 2025. Get your ticket now for three days of practical, hands on sessions showing the what, why, and how of design systems. This year, the conference is focused on developer handoff, accessibility, multi brand theming, and governance. You'll get hands on knowledge you can put to use at work immediately, files and resources to take away, and hear from very well known industry speakers.
The Four Quadrants of Design System Impact, with Ben Callahan — #14
On Theme: Design Systems in Depth
04/21/25 • 73 min
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Ben Callahan joins Elyse for a fun conversation on creating impact with design systems. Ben shares insights from his consulting experience, discussing common pitfalls like organizations expecting a design system without adequately supporting their teams. They break down the "Four Quadrants of Design System Impact" framework, which breaks down tactical versus strategic work, helping teams avoid pitfalls like endless component creation. Plus, hear Ben’s predictions for the future of design systems
Links & References
- Ben Callahan on LinkedIn
- The Question
- Redwoods, Ben's community supporting design system practitioners
- Ben's post on The Four Quadrants and Why you’re NOT seeing Holistic Impact from your Design System
- Ben's overview of our episode of The Question
- Cam Worboy's Broken Promises of Design Systems talk at Config 2024 (and the worst screen made with DS components)
- Kotter's Leading Change book
💖 On Theme is a brand new podcast, so if you like what you're hearing, please hit subscribe and sign up at designsystemsontheme.com!
🎨🎟️ Into Design Systems is May 25-28
Get your ticket at intodesignsystems.com/onthemeInto Design Systems is back with their annual virtual conference, May 28-30, 2025. Get your ticket now for three days of practical, hands on sessions showing the what, why, and how of design systems. This year, the conference is focused on developer handoff, accessibility, multi brand theming, and governance. You'll get hands on knowledge you can put to use at work immediately, files and resources to take away, and hear from very well known industry speakers.
On Theme: The Trailer
On Theme: Design Systems in Depth
10/24/24 • 2 min
Building a multi-brand joint venture design system for BetMGM, with ToniAnn Drenckhahn — #06
On Theme: Design Systems in Depth
02/24/25 • 62 min
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ToniAnn joins the show to share her experience building a multi-brand design system for BetMGM and Entain's joint venture. This episode is our first project deep dive and it's full of legacy codebases, lessons learned, and big wins. ToniAnn talks to us about dealing with ambiguity, owning your decisions, and keeping leadership on board as you ship a system that changes the way your business works—and your partners businesses, too.
💖 On Theme is a brand new podcast, so if you like what you're hearing, please hit subscribe and sign up at designsystemsontheme.com!
Links & References
🎨🎟️ Into Design Systems is May 25-28
Get your ticket at intodesignsystems.com/onthemeInto Design Systems is back with their annual virtual conference, May 28-30, 2025. Get your ticket now for three days of practical, hands on sessions showing the what, why, and how of design systems. This year, the conference is focused on developer handoff, accessibility, multi brand theming, and governance. You'll get hands on knowledge you can put to use at work immediately, files and resources to take away, and hear from very well known industry speakers.
When Design Systems became A Thing with Jina Anne — #02
On Theme: Design Systems in Depth
01/27/25 • 54 min
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Jina Anne gives us a history of the journey from early style guides to widespread industry adoption of design systems, and the challenges and successes. We explore how tokens came to be, how it feels when the engineering team just starts using your work before it's ready, the separation of HTML/CSS/JS concerns, and how ClarityConf got started. Plus, the origin of the phrase "design systems" (maybe?), and what the NASA Graphic Standards Manual has to do with ClarityConf.
💖 On Theme is a brand new podcast, so if you like what you're hearing, please hit subscribe and sign up at designsystemsontheme.com!
Links & References
- Jina Anne
- ClarityConf
- The Design Systems Slack
- Quark
- Salesforce Theo for design tokens
- Old-school CSS tools Sass, Less, and Stylus
- CSS Custom Properties (variables)
- Adam Morris and Tachyons
- Salesforce Lightning Design System
- Nicole Sullivan and Mark Otto at The Mixin meetup
- Richard Danne, Designing for Earthlings and Astronauts at ClarityConf 2016
- The original 1976 NASA Graphic Standards Manual
- Gartner Hype Cycle for UX 2024
- Penpot (Figma alt)
- Josh Silverman at CCA
- Ben Callahan's The Question
🎨🎟️ Into Design Systems is May 25-28
Get your ticket at intodesignsystems.com/onthemeInto Design Systems is back with their annual virtual conference, May 28-30, 2025. Get your ticket now for three days of practical, hands on sessions showing the what, why, and how of design systems. This year, the conference is focused on developer handoff, accessibility, multi brand theming, and governance. You'll get hands on knowledge you can put to use at work immediately, files and resources to take away, and hear from very well known industry speakers.
Naming is hard, but have you tried working with people? with Guy Segal — #15
On Theme: Design Systems in Depth
04/28/25 • 65 min
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Guy Segal joins Elyse to unpack the messy, complicated world of... people. Guy shares practical strategies from his experience at Thomson Reuters, including the powerful "pre-mortem" exercise he used to rebuild trust and alignment for the design system. They get vulnerable and unpack why (as cliche as it sounds!) genuine listening, storytelling, learning to give and receive feedback, and actively engaging with product teams, is so much more impactful than relying solely on processes or artifacts. Plus, Guy shares why he hated it at first when product teams started using the name of the design system.
Links & References
- Guy Segal on LinkedIn
- Guy's talk at BeMore Festival on feedback, Working with Humans: Resolving Conflicts with Empathy
- Guy's talk Mastering the Painless Design Critique
- Guy on the Knapsack Design Systems Podcast
- Guy's podcast, Design Downtime, celebrating the joys of living a balanced creative life outside the pixels and wireframes
- Brad Frost's article Choosing a Name for your Design System
💖 On Theme is a brand new podcast, so if you like what you're hearing, please hit subscribe and sign up at designsystemsontheme.com!
🎨🎟️ Into Design Systems is May 25-28
Get your ticket at intodesignsystems.com/onthemeInto Design Systems is back with their annual virtual conference, May 28-30, 2025. Get your ticket now for three days of practical, hands on sessions showing the what, why, and how of design systems. This year, the conference is focused on developer handoff, accessibility, multi brand theming, and governance. You'll get hands on knowledge you can put to use at work immediately, files and resources to take away, and hear from very well known industry speakers.
Layoffs, rebrands, and getting "zero results" from your design system, with Noelle Lansford — #03
On Theme: Design Systems in Depth
02/03/25 • 58 min
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You can't talk about design systems lately without addressing the elephant in the room: layoffs. Noelle walks us through her experience of multiple layoffs in one year, why 2023 was so different than 2020, and how the success criteria of design systems correlated with team layoffs. We discuss the bogeyman of "getting zero results from your design system" and what Noelle was hearing from business leadership about that, and how storytelling might matter more than metrics. Plus, a very spicy take on ~the rebrand~, and why at least one company was hiring for someone to delete their design system 😱
Warning: F-word/language.
💖 On Theme is a brand new podcast, so if you like what you're hearing, please hit subscribe and sign up at designsystemsontheme.com!
Links & References
- Noelle Lansford on LinkedIn
- Hire Noelle on your system: NoelleLansford.com
- Noelle's semi-viral blog post, The State of Design Systems
- layoffs.fyi
- Sam Anderson's Design Systems are Infrastructure
- eBay Design Playbook
🎨🎟️ Into Design Systems is May 25-28
Get your ticket at intodesignsystems.com/onthemeInto Design Systems is back with their annual virtual conference, May 28-30, 2025. Get your ticket now for three days of practical, hands on sessions showing the what, why, and how of design systems. This year, the conference is focused on developer handoff, accessibility, multi brand theming, and governance. You'll get hands on knowledge you can put to use at work immediately, files and resources to take away, and hear from very well known industry speakers.
Bye Purple! A redesign powered by local & global design system layers at Spotify, with Smith Schwartz & Tyce Clee — #09
On Theme: Design Systems in Depth
03/17/25 • 56 min
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Spotify’s ad platform just got a serious glow-up, and Smith and Tyce are here to tell us how they pulled it off. Smith Schwartz, Product Design Manager, and Tyce Clee, Engineering Manager, walk us through the redesign of Spotify Ads Manager—why it was needed, how they used design systems to make it happen, and what it took to get buy-in. Smith and Tyce tell us about the shift from a playful UI to a more data-dense, enterprise-friendly experience, how their local design system worked alongside Spotify’s global Encore system, and why storytelling (not just metrics) is key to selling design system work internally. Plus, how a simple name like "Bye Purple" helped them drive alignment and make the redesign a company-wide priority.
💖 On Theme is a brand new podcast, so if you like what you're hearing, please hit subscribe and sign up at designsystemsontheme.com!
Links & References
- Smith Schwartz on LinkedIn
- Tyce Clee on LinkedIn
- Backstory time! Smith & Tyce on the Knapsack Design Systems podcast last year talking about Ads Manager pre-redesign
- Reimagining Design Systems at Spotify on spotify.design
- Creating coherence: How Spotify’s design system goes beyond platforms, on the Figma Shortcut blog
🎨🎟️ Into Design Systems is May 25-28
Get your ticket at intodesignsystems.com/onthemeInto Design Systems is back with their annual virtual conference, May 28-30, 2025. Get your ticket now for three days of practical, hands on sessions showing the what, why, and how of design systems. This year, the conference is focused on developer handoff, accessibility, multi brand theming, and governance. You'll get hands on knowledge you can put to use at work immediately, files and resources to take away, and hear from very well known industry speakers.
I’m a design system consumer now: lessons from the other side, with Beau Ulrey — #07
On Theme: Design Systems in Depth
03/03/25 • 43 min
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I invited Beau to the podcast because of his great Medium articles on design systems... but he's not working on a system team right now! Beau shares his experiences on both sides of the—fence? aisle?—and the lessons he's taken away. We chat about the tradeoffs of building for speed vs stability, bringing new designs for AI products into the system, onboarding, cross-team empathy, and why we're always complaining about the other side. Plus, find out what Beau wanted to be when he grew up.
💖 On Theme is a brand new podcast, so if you like what you're hearing, please hit subscribe and sign up at designsystemsontheme.com!
Links & References
- Beau Ulrey on LinkedIn
- Beau on the Knapsack Design System Podcast
- Beau's articles on Medium
- A Design System That Holds Your Hand
- US Bank Shield Design System
- Oracle Redwood Design System
- Ship Faster by Building Design Systems Slower - Big Medium (pace layers)
🎨🎟️ Into Design Systems is May 25-28
Get your ticket at intodesignsystems.com/onthemeInto Design Systems is back with their annual virtual conference, May 28-30, 2025. Get your ticket now for three days of practical, hands on sessions showing the what, why, and how of design systems. This year, the conference is focused on developer handoff, accessibility, multi brand theming, and governance. You'll get hands on knowledge you can put to use at work immediately, files and resources to take away, and hear from very well known industry speakers.
The flaws of the “accessibility is built in to the design system” argument, with Daniel Henderson-Ede — #12
On Theme: Design Systems in Depth
04/07/25 • 38 min
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Ever had a team come to you after an a11y audit like, "but I used the design system, why does my product have accessibility defects??" Daniel Henderson-Ede, one of design systems' leading accessibility voices, joins me on the show today to unpack a spicy myth in design systems: that accessibility can be fully "built-in." Daniel walks us through the common pitfalls of overselling accessibility, how teams often mistakenly assume the system handles everything, and we explore the challenges and missteps of managing accessibility.
📋 Plus, check out Daniel's Systems-Accessibility Ownership Matrix resource that you can use on your Design System team!
Links & References
- Daniel Henderson-Ede on LinkedIn
- Daniel's website
- Daniel's recorded talks and shows
- Mantis & Co accessibility services
- Download Daniel and CVS's Figma Web Accessibility Annotation Kit
- Stark Figma plugin
- Use this for your teams! Daniel's Systems-Accessibility Ownership Matrix
- Inconsistent consistency within design systems
💖 On Theme is a brand new podcast, so if you like what you're hearing, please hit subscribe and sign up at designsystemsontheme.com!
🎨🎟️ Into Design Systems is May 25-28
Get your ticket at intodesignsystems.com/onthemeInto Design Systems is back with their annual virtual conference, May 28-30, 2025. Get your ticket now for three days of practical, hands on sessions showing the what, why, and how of design systems. This year, the conference is focused on developer handoff, accessibility, multi brand theming, and governance. You'll get hands on knowledge you can put to use at work immediately, files and resources to take away, and hear from very well known industry speakers.
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FAQ
How many episodes does On Theme: Design Systems in Depth have?
On Theme: Design Systems in Depth currently has 20 episodes available.
What topics does On Theme: Design Systems in Depth cover?
The podcast is about Design, Web Development, Css, Podcasts and Technology.
What is the most popular episode on On Theme: Design Systems in Depth?
The episode title 'On Theme: The Trailer' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on On Theme: Design Systems in Depth?
The average episode length on On Theme: Design Systems in Depth is 48 minutes.
How often are episodes of On Theme: Design Systems in Depth released?
Episodes of On Theme: Design Systems in Depth are typically released every 7 days.
When was the first episode of On Theme: Design Systems in Depth?
The first episode of On Theme: Design Systems in Depth was released on Oct 24, 2024.
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