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A design system as a language

Some thoughts after reading A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction.

What if the design system goal was to provide a language for designers and engineers to design for themselves within, rather than provide solutions for designers and engineers to use?

Describing the core of a solution allows it to be used a million ways over without doing it the same way twice.

Different solutions have different confidences, how can we distinguish these? For example, separate this is the solution from this is a solution.

Pajamas is unique and distinct pattern language, and every individual who makes GitLab also has a unique language. Is this tension, beauty, space for expression, something else? Perhaps the key is finding where the language is shared and similar.

Has today’s language of product design become so brutal and so fragmented that most product design no longer has any language — and what we do have is not based on human or natural considerations?

Does modern software lack character because it exists in a modern Metropolis? Do we need a mosaic of subcultures?

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