On Theme: Design Systems in Depth
On Theme: Design Systems in Depth
Elyse Holladay
Layoffs, rebrands, and getting "zero results" from your design system, with Noelle Lansford — #03
58 minutes Posted Feb 3, 2025 at 5:00 pm.
Noelle & Episode Intro
Noelle's viral blog post
2020 layoffs vs 2023
Why systems teams were getting cut
Catastrophizing system usage
Just delete the system!
How storytelling has (and needs to) change
What do you need right NOW?
The imaginary rebrand
Noelle's predictions for 2025
Starting a design system consultancy
🌶️ Spicy Take
0:00
58:25
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Show notes
You can't talk about design systems lately without addressing the elephant in the room: layoffs. Noelle walks us through her experience of multiple layoffs in one year, why 2023 was so different than 2020, and how the success criteria of design systems correlated with team layoffs. We discuss the bogeyman of "getting zero results from your design system" and what Noelle was hearing from business leadership about that, and how storytelling might matter more than metrics. Plus, a very spicy tak...