Deep Dives S1 | E1: Joey Banks — Design systems + Figma strategies

In this episode, Joey Banks gives an in-depth look at what it’s like to lead design systems at Twitter and Webflow. He shares his strategies for structuring component libraries, working efficiently in Figma, and even keeping up with all of the latest plugins and tooling. Additionally, he highlights the importance of building relationships with teammates and gives us a glimpse into how he collaborates with the rest of the design team at Webflow.

Want more Deep Dives? Get the rest of season 1 here — dive.club/deep-dives

Dive is where the best designers never stop learning 🤿

🌐 dive.club 🐦 twitter.com/joindiveclub

Now you can join advanced courses taught by the top designers to help you take a huge leap forward in your career 💪

0:00 Intro 0:45 Joey’s iOS Figma Kit 3:03 iOS kit: what’s the most challenging part? 4:06 iOS kit: does order matter when working on the iOS kit? 6:01 iOS kit: what was it like incorporating component properties to the iOS kit? 8:00 How do you balance using component properties VS variant properties? 10:08 How do you approach documentation? 11:33 Joey’s career arc 14:35 How did you end up at twitter? 16:04 Twitter was your first design system role. What was that like? 17:19 What’s the relationship side of design system work? 18:18 Why’d you join Webflow? 20:50 What’s your approach to component organization? 22:34 How to keep a component in sync when it is duplicated across libraries? 23:59 What are the unexpected parts of your job in design systems? 25:17 How does the design system team grapple with the product evolving and changing? 27:05 How do you know when a piece of the system is being used? 29:38 Design system work is not just working in Figma! 31:03 What common mistakes do you see people make in Figma? 33:00 What guiding principles do you have for people just starting their design system journey? 34:14 Being able to move components between files is a game-changer 36:50 How does Joey work efficiently in Figma? 39:27 The tool space is advancing so fast. How do you keep up? 42:25 Details about Joey’s Dive course