Startups and small teams might be tempted to forego creating design systems, but it’s a gross oversight in the long run. Without a design system in place, you’ll struggle to ensure UI/UX consistency as your product grows and evolves. Not to mention that communicating your design guidelines, standards, and expectations will be more complicated than it needs to be.
At Fivecube, we routinely provide professional design system services for startups and SMEs. If you fall into that category, here’s what you need to know about design systems.
What Is a Design System?
Think of a design system as the bible for your product’s design. It describes the key building blocks and standards for its main elements, from margins and padding in page layouts to the color of different buttons.
Design systems ensure that your product’s UI/UX will be consistent across modules and platforms. They usually consist of:
UI component library. Also known as a UI kit, this library brings together all reusable components for your UI/UX design (e.g., buttons, logos, dropdown menus). For example, we delivered one for NeoBank while designing its fintech mobile app.
Pattern library. Patterns are combinations of several UI components used together (e.g., a table layout or error message).
Brand style guide. This is a list of dos and don’ts for using brand assets and maintaining a uniform visual style. They usually cover fonts, colors, logo variations, and so on.
Design principles. They help teams make consistent design choices and use the design system.
Want to see design systems in action? Check out our Lyber case study. To deliver a UI/UX design for the Web 3.0 app’s web version, we relied on the existing mobile app design tenets to ensure a consistent experience across platforms.
If you’re looking for design systems examples, in turn, check out:
Adobe Spectrum, Adobe’s design system for the company’s applications
Material Design 3, Google’s open-source design framework for web and mobile interfaces
Atlassian Design, Atlassian’s design system for designers and developers
Why Create a Design System?
Smaller teams focused on MVP development may be tempted to forego creating a design system. After all, resources tend to be limited for startups and rapidly growing businesses.
Still, design systems enable product growth, even though they do require an initial investment to create and maintain. That’s why, in our opinion, overlooking a design system is one of the most critical design mistakes startups make.
Here are the four major benefits of having a design system in place:
Rapid prototyping. Ready-made components and design guidelines accelerate prototype development, helping you test and iterate faster. This allows startups like our client, Lyber, to scale their product more easily, adding extra features or subscription tiers.
Easier onboarding. Eventually, you’ll need to bring new people on your team. Introducing them to a design system is ten times easier than explaining every tenet of your design one by one.
Design consistency. Design systems provide a common framework for every designer and developer on your team. They’ll also help you communicate your requirements if you hire on-demand graphic design services.
Facilitated communication. The best design systems serve as a knowledge base, saving time for everyone.
3 Signs You Need a Design System
Things to Know Before Systems Design
At Fivecube agency, we prefer to be upfront with our clients: design systems, while helpful, are an investment. So, here’s what you should keep in mind before you dive into systems design:
Maintaining the design system takes time and effort. Your design system will have to evolve based on the feedback from users and designers alike. It’s also likely to need expanding as your product grows and evolves.
You may need to invest in upskilling your team. If no one on your team already knows how to work with a design system, hiring someone to create one might be a waste of time and money. Make sure everyone who will need to use the design system understands how to do it across screens and platforms.
How to Create a Design System: Fivecube’s Guide
When we approach creating a design system for our clients, we follow these seven steps:
Assessing the current design needs, roadblocks, and challenges to define objectives
Auditing the existing product design to identify patterns, reusable elements, and inconsistencies
Outlining the future design system’s structure
Creating the first iteration of the design system with principles, guidelines, and component library
Building a brand style guide and documentation hub
Improving the design system based on the client’s feedback
Handing off the design system’s final version
Final Thoughts
Creating a design system is an investment, but it’s well worth it, especially if you expect your product to scale fast. So, take time to create it — or entrust Fivecube’s design experts with its creation. Get in touch with us to discuss your design system needs in more depth.
Aug 5, 2025
By
Fivecube Team
Previous Article
Next Article
Want a tailored solution?
Let’s build something great together!