Design systems for teams that don't have a design system
March 2, 2026
A short thought on shipping consistent UI before you have the headcount to formalize one.
A placeholder for the full piece — most small teams don't have the time or headcount for a formal design system, but that doesn't mean design consistency has to be an afterthought.
A handful of shared tokens (color, spacing, type scale) and a couple of reusable primitives go a surprisingly long way before anyone needs a full component library.