Design Systems Meetup: First Edition

How do you make a lazy Sunday afternoon productive? At GeekyAnts, we tried organizing an intriguing meetup for designers, and guess what? It worked! We were more than delighted to see happy faces all around. Let’s take you through how the event unfolded.

As a first, GeekyAnts hosted a Design Systems meetup on Sunday, July 3rd, 2022. It was an enticing event where UI/UX design experts gathered together with a curious audience to share their knowledge and have some insightful discussions about how the design systems work.

This first edition of the design systems meetup commenced with a welcome note by none other than Sanket, our CEO, and Digvijay, growth marketing manager. Their cordial address to the audience was all that was needed to draw their attention to the upcoming design talks. Given the occurrence of the event on a Sunday, the atmosphere was kept quite casual rather than a monotonous formal session where speakers come and read from their presentations.

The first speaker for the event was our UI/UX designer Tanisha. Her command over her craft keeps her at the forefront of our design endeavors. She is an active part of the UI/UX designers community and likes to keep a tab on all that is trending. She was there to bust some age-old myths about design systems. Her address to the audience started by first explaining what a design system is, what it is not, and how it is different from a mere design components library.

She went on to explain the need for and benefits of using design systems. Her address also comprised the intricate details of a design system, such as what it includes, what it provides to a project, and so on.

Next in line was the design expert with five years of illustrious experience working with industry leaders. His skillset is a collection of finesse in all aspects of designs for a variety of projects. Right from being deeply involved in building guidelines and components of design systems through to UI guidelines and components, he has been a part of it all. Sanket and Sidharth had an elaborate and engaging discussion about the involvement and importance of designs in various fronts of an organization and all the content that is produced.

Sidharth talked about the flexibility and consistency of designs on all platforms of an organization, including video, graphics, marketing designs, websites, etc. He also talked about the essentials, such as fonts in designs and the structure and responsibilities of a design systems team. Next, he discussed the choice of platforms where a company should start portraying themselves and the stacks to be used, including HTML, CSS, Figma library, etc.

The aim of this conversation was to throw light on the thought process behind creating designs that help organizations present themselves to their target audience along with maintaining a balance between flexibility and creativity.

We could see the kind of positive acceptance with which the audience received these invaluable insights. They also had curious questions, which the experts on stage satisfactorily answered. We then concluded the session with some refreshments and an interactive exchange where all participants could exchange their ideas and network. It was the kind of event we had anticipated and would love to host in the future too. 

See you next time at another edition of the designs systems meetup!