Hey friend,

Well I know I may not have earned the friendship sit yet, but be patient with me🌚. I’m learning baby steps through being better friends with you because I truly appreciate having you here🫂Now I’d like us to talk about something super important today…your design voice.

You see, I truly believe every designer has a unique way of thinking, creating, and solving problems. But here’s the thing, many designers step into the industry by simply copying what’s already out there. Not necessarily a bad thing (we all learn by imitation at some point), but what happens when you never take time to figure out your perspective? It sounds scary, I know. But it’s been happening

A few years ago, during a team meeting at one of my job, we were asked to share our thoughts on a design problem. And me? I either reworded what others had said or mumbled some unsure response. I never actually sat with my own thoughts long enough to figure out what I truly believed. I just wanted to sound agreeable 🤷🏾‍♀️.

But that’s not how you grow. And while I figured that about me and learned the hard way, I won’t like that to be the case for you as well.

So here’s my challenge for you: Make time to sit with your own creativity. Step away from trends for a bit, stop scrolling, and just listen to your mind. What kind of designer do you want to be? How would you solve a problem?

The designers that truly stand out are the ones who take time to study, experiment, and develop their own perspectives, not just the ones who blend in. It’s okay to be different, with justifiable course of course (in design we will say “clear rationale”)

Now, shifting gears a little...let’s talk about design systems—one of my favorite things!

From point 101, let’s clear something up: A design system is NOT just a bunch of buttons and components sitting pretty in Figma. Nope. It’s way more than that.

So what is a Design System?:

* A structured system that keeps design consistent across products.

Please note: Consistency isn’t about making everything look the same, it’s about making everything feel like it belongs, no matter how much the product evolves.

* Design system is a toolkit that helps designers and developers work smoothly together.

* Design system is a growing, evolving guide that keeps everything in sync.

What isn’t a Design System? :

* A one-time project you slap together and forget.

* A creativity killer (it should actually empower creativity!).

* Just a fancy UI kit (we’ll get to that in a second, hold my milk first🥛).

Let’s take a short break!

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UI Kit vs. Design System

Because people mix this up all the time, let’s address it today;

* UI Kit is a collection of pre-designed elements like buttons, cards, and icons. It’s useful, but it doesn’t come with rules or a structure.

* Design System is a UI kit plus detailed guidelines, principles, and best practices that make sure your designs are scalable and consistent.

So when you think of a design system, think about all the pretty button groups, avatar, etc, then think of detailed guideline for usage and think scalability.

But when does a team require a design system?

When do you think you (the design system enthusiast within the team) or the design system team should think to build a design system?

* When your product is growing and needs design consistency.

* When your team is scaling and things are getting messy.

* When you want to stop reinventing the wheel every time you start a new project.

Some folks have done intense work in hacking this design system thing for large/small teams and I believe you can check them out to learn more what a design system is and what it isn’t. I added a few of them below;

* Material Design (Google) – material.io

* Carbon Design System (IBM) – carbondesignsystem.com

* Atlassian Design System – atlassian.design

* IBS Design System (Yep, we’re on the list! 💛) – IBS Design System

Now the big question!

Does Your Team Need a Design System or Just a UI Kit?

* If you're in a small startup, a UI kit might be enough for now.

* If your team is growing fast, a design system will save everyone headaches.

* If you’re working on enterprise-level products, a design system is a must.

Yup! It’s a wrap “friend” 😉, am ending this love letter by reiterating what I mentioned earlier

Your design journey is personal, take time to listen to your own creative instincts. Be intentional about finding your voice. And when it comes to scaling your designs, a well-structured system makes all the difference.

I’ll send you another letter next week, where we’ll break down how to actually build a design system or integrate one into your workflow (because what’s the point of all this if you don’t know where to start?). Be expectant!

Until next time, here’s to growing together. 🌱

🖤🤍,Blessed

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You remember Orvile Wright one of the duo that invented the airplane, my second favourite thing about him is the quote, but we will get to that shortly. When we first reached out to Omah on linkedin, I was nearly certain she wasn't going to respond. For a digital creator, no-code engineer and prominently product designer at a Paris-based AI firm, having Omah respond to the message and progressing to be on this episode of our podcast was incredibly thrilling.

Atasie Esther Omah has for nearly half a decade now been working in product design and has in this time been behind some exceptional projects across a wide vertical of niches including fintech, saas, creative/inspirational software and currently AI. In addition to these, she developes no-code softwares, mentors nascent talents and create engaging contents using bordering on her career, faith and life.

If we are to describe Omah in a sentence, it will simply be - " an enthusiastic, well rounded and adept creative" who amongst other mediums expresses herself in distinct user centric product designs. She's well respected in design circles and regardless of her obviously busy schedules, she is always willing to share her skills and experience with others.

Ironically, we won't have known about the last part had we not reached out.

Back to our quote - " if we worked on the assumption that only whats accepted as true really is true, there will be little or no hope for advance"

Link to uiland: https://uiland.design/

Direct link to youtube:

Direct link to apple podcast:

Join us as we ditch the survival guide and hack the system with Millicent Braah, a product manager at SystemSpec who's been there, done that, and got the skills (and the stories) to prove it.

In this episode, we're ditching the fluff and diving deep into the essential soft skills (think: communication, self-awareness, and problem-solving) you need to level up your job search game. We'll explore:

• Cracking the product management code: How to break into the field even if you feel like you're starting from scratch. (Spoiler alert: It's not just about the technical stuff!)


• Portfolio power: Building a portfolio that (without spending hours on endless online courses).


• The power of self-awareness: How knowing yourself can help you land the perfect job (and avoid career traps along the way).

But wait, there's more!

PMillicent Braah also spills the tea on the valuable lessons she learned running a Newbies, a non-profit organization. Get ready for insights on employee engagement, collaboration, and leading with empathy – skills that are gold standard no matter what career path you choose.

Access Links

The spotlight website - https://www.thespotlightpod.com/

The spotlight podcast - https://open.spotify.com/show/4X1slY6OkUfngSJvdkyYXr?si=26f802af11614673

Work therapy podcast - https://open.spotify.com/show/12h4gMVsGAhm5r1Z6vQLMH?si=515d786388b242b3

Fix.uxr - https://www.instagram.com/fiz.uxr/

I'm here to tell you that no one is expecting a 100% from you, we don't expect you to get it all right at once, you are just expected to START. And even if we(some people) expect a 100% from you, that's our expectation...and our opinion. But it's your life, your plans and your goals.

Take baby steps through it, and when/if you ever fail, you would find the courage to start again.

Happy new year loves

Games for Creatives

Can't unsee - Here

Color game - Here

User Inyerface - Here

In this episode, I shared my yearly plan guide with us and we talked about getting in-touch with ourselves, our personality and also highlighted guides on how we can be alot more intentional in 2024

Let's go!

And yes, there will be a continuation of this episode...

In this episode I interviewed my friend Sammie, a seasoned senior designer with years of experience in the creative space...he dropped alot of tips.

Also, this is a link to his youtube channel - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adC5x25BSCc, a space for every creative intentional about growth

These are the links to the udemy courses mentioned in the episode too.