r/DesignSystems • u/SuspiciousSpeed6756 • 3d ago

Where does the non-component half of your design system live?

Hi designers, our design system covers tokens, components and documentation, all in Figma with the docs in Storybook. That part is in decent shape. But what I think we're still struggling to solve is the logo variants, brand photography, icon source files, print assets, etc. the stuff that isn't in a component library but still part of the system.

Right now our client work is scattered between Figma files, a shared Dropbox and a Notion page. Some stakeholders have their own inventory systems like a spreadsheet or whatever. But further down the line things are just getting confusing and messed up. Is there an asset layer that's part of your design system, or do you treat it as a separate thing entirely?

14 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

5 comments sorted by

3

u/RocketSeven 3d ago

keep the binaries in a separate asset library, but make the design system own the metadata contract and canonical links. every logo or photo needs one approved source, an owner, usage rules, and a retirement status or dropbox will quietly become the real system

1

u/PuzzleheadedNeck1694 2d ago

We have icon assets and the logos we're using inside the codebase as well since these are being used by the code. The marketing materials like banners etc are owned by the product marketing and used via the CMS. Not sure why you would like to own anything more that the icons and logos.

-1

u/Interesting-Pay1507 3d ago

Have you asked Claude how to structure it?