What drew you to design systems?

A few years back, I was an apprentice for a freelance product designer and my main responsibility was to document his designs and help his customers understand how to continue on with our designs. I loved extracting patterns and spending time writing documentation so every chance I had at any job after that I either participated or initiated the design systems efforts.

Who have you learned from or been inspired by?

I'll start with a lesson from a book. Mark Manson helped me stop looking for shortcuts. Javier Cañada pushed me to think about design outside technology and be inspired by history, literature, philosophy... Sasha Prokhorova taught me that design is not just about craft. She made me a better professional along with some others who I consider my mentors like David la Iglesia, Adrian Mato or Emily Hayman. From Yaili I learned to love design systems documentation and how to show others the value of it. Then Nathan Curtis content became the manual on how to write and present documentation. Yesenia helped me see how design systems can be functional, effective and still convey a brand's personality. The most important lesson, be it design or human level is that communities help us grow and learn from one another. This is why I'm so inspired by people like Jina, Mina, Diana or Stu who are passionate thought leaders doing so much for the design and development industry. Also Zendaya. What a great time to be alive!

Favorite tools

Figma, Things, SPREADSHEETS!, Notion, Emojis, Moleskine journals and Fujifilm X-H1.