Design Systems Podcast: Scaling Spectrum, Adobe’s design system
A conversation with Garth Braithwaite on building tools, bridging disciplines, and deepening impact
Garth talks through the challenges of managing design tokens across platforms, the importance of naming conventions, versioning, and documentation, and offers practical advice for new teams—start small, iterate, and focus on communication and collaboration over perfection. He reflects on how his transition from designer to engineer sparked a passion for building tools that empower both disciplines. And, recognizing that design systems aren’t easy to govern at scale, he also shares how bringing humility to this work can foster closer collaboration.
Insights from the conversation
- Suggestions for teams just starting to build a design system
- Spectrum’s definitions, examples, and usage guidelines for design tokens
- How design systems can provide value, instead of mandates, to product teams
- Content strategy’s role in creating a universal design system language
- How design systems teams in large organizations can manage change
About the Design Systems Podcast
Sponsored by Knapsack, Design Systems Podcast interviews industry leaders and product makers to share best practices and explore the areas where design and development overlap. They talk with experts to get their point of view about trends in design code and how it relates to the world around us.