From handoffs to upstream
summary
A small Copenhagen studio intentionally shifts from handoffs to pushing to clients' Git repos, running design systems as production code and sitting upstream of engineering. One designer is timeboxed to convert a Figma UI into a Storybook, an NPM package and components in a week, supported by daily 15‑minute syncs and a course. Results include mobile white‑label apps in production, Storybook + NPM package, and a headline metric: 84% of production code built by designers confirming the approach works.
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chapters (11)
- 0:00Introduction
- 3:02Design studios own design systems
- 6:14Selecting the right designer
- 9:03One-week design engineering challenge
- 10:46Trust and daily support
- 12:53Protecting from shame
- 13:55First design system shipped
- 15:17Cultural shift and empowerment
- 17:26Half team ships production code
- 18:51Outcome and commercial upside
- 19:34Call to action
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