Home Work About Field Notes Contact
Back to work Design Systems

Building a faster,
smarter UI kit

Migrating from a fragmented Sketch setup to a scalable, contribution-ready Figma UI kit — rethinking the system rather than just porting it.

Scope Design System Overhaul
Tools Figma · Design Tokens
Category Design Systems
Focus Components · Velocity · Adoption
Button Primary Input Placeholder text Card Content area Badge Label Modal Navigation Home Work About Data Table Form FIGMA UI KIT · COMPONENT LIBRARY · DESIGN SYSTEM FOUNDATIONS
Objective

A centralised, scalable foundation for every team

The goal was to create a centralised, reliable, and scalable UI kit in Figma that would unlock better collaboration, reduce inconsistency, and enable faster iteration across product teams.

This wasn't about replicating existing Sketch files. It was an opportunity to rethink the system in a way that could better support growth, contribution, and velocity — building something the whole organisation could rely on and contribute back to.

Challenges & Goals

A system that was holding teams back

The existing setup had accumulated technical debt and structural problems that slowed down every team touching product design.

  • The existing Sketch kit was outdated, fragmented, and hard to maintain
  • Teams were duplicating work or reinventing components due to confusion and misalignment
  • Designers and engineers lacked a single source of truth — especially around variants, states, and design language
  • Some designers were inadvertently creating fragmentation in the code through inconsistent design decisions
  • The migration needed to minimise development disruption while seizing the opportunity to genuinely improve, not just port
Solutions

Rebuilt from foundations up

We built a Figma UI kit rooted in the design system foundations — clear architecture, reusable components, and contribution guidelines baked in from the start. The migration became a deliberate redesign.

  • Refactored and simplified components using variants and properties to reduce bloat and improve maintainability
  • Applied Figma styles throughout to ensure design language consistency across every surface
  • Established clear naming and structure conventions across foundations and components
  • Created Figma templates and usage guidelines to help teams adopt and contribute faster
Process

Structured to get it right

A phased approach ensured nothing was missed and every team had a chance to validate the work before it landed.

1

Audit & Mapping

Full audit of the existing Sketch components, cataloguing what existed, what was broken, what was duplicated, and what could be consolidated.

2

Design System Foundations First

Established colour, typography, spacing, and token structures in Figma before touching a single component — giving everything a consistent base to build from.

3

Component Refactoring

Rebuilt components with modern Figma practices — variants, component properties, auto layout — reducing complexity while improving flexibility.

4

Collaboration & Testing

Worked with designers and engineers across teams to validate components against real product use cases, surfacing edge cases early.

5

Enablement & Launch

Ran onboarding sessions, produced documentation, and launched with contribution guidelines so teams could get started and give back from day one.

Results & Impact

Faster design, stronger alignment

The new Figma UI kit delivered measurable improvements across design velocity, cross-functional alignment, and long-term system health.

⚡

Faster Design Velocity

Designers could assemble and iterate on screens significantly faster with reusable, well-structured components.

🤝

Improved Design & Dev Alignment

A shared source of truth reduced miscommunication and hand-off friction between design and engineering.

🔧

Simplified Updates & Maintenance

Changes to foundations and components propagated cleanly, making system-wide updates a fraction of the effort.

📈

Increased System Adoption

Clear documentation and contribution pathways drove wider adoption — teams trusted the system and used it consistently.

Want to talk through this work?

Get in touch →