What drew you to design systems?

I like it when things around me are organized. I like writing, and the process of refining an idea into words. I like guidelines, style guides, patterns, HTML, and CSS. I like to have several projects on at once. I like planning. I like to work smart, not hard. When you add all of these you get… design systems!

Who have you learned from or been inspired by?

More than anything, the people I’ve worked with over the years. I learned something from everyone: being generous with my knowledge, being serious about research, work discipline, balancing family life and work, speaking up, picking my battles, and everything good that I know. Also: the conversations and connections I made during the early years of Design Twitter — still going strong.

Favorite tools

Too many! Things, Simplenote, iA Writer, Dictionary, VS Code, xScope, notebooks, Pinboard, Overcast, spreadsheets, and Earl Grey.