In 2025, the development of large digital products is no longer possible without a component-based approach and a well-structured design system. The market is moving toward modularity, consistent interfaces, high accessibility, and rapid feature delivery. If earlier companies could rely on UI kits, sets of buttons and colors, today a design system is the foundation of the entire visual architecture of a product. It helps keep interfaces consistent, reduces bugs, and speeds up team workflows.
Evolution of Design Systems: From UI Kits to Product Ecosystems
Over the past few years, design systems have come a long way:
2020: UI kits in Figma with ready-made elements.
2022: growth of component and token libraries, rise of Storybook.
2023–2024: widespread transition to design tokens and documentation automation.
2025: a design system becomes a full ecosystem that includes: tokens (colors, typography, sizes), component libraries, UX guidelines, publishing processes, automation tools.
Libraries such as MUI, Radix, Chakra, Ant Design, and shadcn/ui have set the standards for flexibility and accessibility. Today, almost every company is building its own component library to meet the demands of the modern market.
Key Elements of a Modern Design System
1. Design Tokens as the Foundation of Visual Consistency
Design tokens function as the atoms of the visual system, serving as the “DNA” that shapes every interface. Color variables, typography, spacing, shadows, radii, and animation parameters are represented as compact, machine-readable entities accessible to both designers and developers.
The main value of tokens is that they exist independently of any specific screen or component. They are stored in universal formats such as JSON and CSS Variables and can be easily shared across projects. Changing just one parameter is enough for the update to automatically propagate to all interfaces that rely on it. For this reason, tokens become the “single source of truth” for the entire design system, eliminating inconsistencies and freeing teams from manual style maintenance.
2. Components as Key Elements of the Interface
Components form the foundation of any modern design system. Whether they are simple elements like buttons and input fields or more complex ones like modals, cards, and tables, they must function as reliable and predictable building blocks that the team can use daily. A key requirement for components is their independence and a clear, intuitive API. Each component must be fully accessible: work correctly with a keyboard, display a proper focus ring, and use ARIA attributes. Equally important is support for customization through tokens, which enables visual flexibility without rewriting logic. And, of course, all components must maintain visual stability across platforms, themes, and usage scenarios.
3. Documentation
Proper documentation transforms a set of components into a complete design system. Each element must be described so that any developer or designer immediately understands its capabilities, limitations, and usage rules. Tools such as Storybook or Ladle are used to create interactive examples and visually explore component behavior.
Automatic generation of component properties, presentation of multiple states, and clear usage recommendations help maintain a consistent quality standard. As a result, documentation becomes a practical tool that reduces errors, accelerates onboarding, and ensures predictable interfaces across the entire product.
4. UX Guidelines
UX guidelines form the common language spoken across the entire product. They describe essential principles, from spacing and sizing rules to grid structures, interaction patterns, and component behavior in different contexts. In essence, UX guidelines serve as a navigation map that guides designers and developers and ensures a consistent user experience throughout the product.
Component-Based Approach in 2025
The spread of the component-based approach is driven by several key trends. First, the growing popularity of microfrontends requires compatible and reusable UI modules that can be easily combined into a unified system. Second, products are becoming multiplatform, meaning interfaces must maintain a consistent style across web, mobile, smart TV, and even embedded devices.
Finally, the modern market demands rapid iterations, and having a shared component library directly reduces time-to-market and accelerates releases.
A Practical Guide to Building and Developing a Design System
Creating a design system is a step-by-step process that relies on fundamental principles of visual architecture and disciplined interface management. Below are four steps that help build a system suitable for growth and scaling.
Step 1. Define Design Tokens
The first stage is establishing the visual foundation. Define the core set of tokens: color palette, typography, spacing and sizing, grid, shadows, radii, motion parameters. It is best to store tokens in machine-readable formats such as CSS Variables or JSON, as this ensures reusability and easy synchronization across projects.
Step 2. Create Basic Components
Once the tokens are defined, you can move on to building components. Start with the key interface elements: buttons, input fields, typography components, and layout components. Each component should rely on tokens so that any visual changes (for example, updating the primary color) automatically propagate throughout the entire library.
Step 3. Automate Documentation
A design system must remain living and up to date, which means documentation cannot be static. Use tools that support automation:
Storybook or Ladle for interactive examples,
Docusaurus for guidelines,
automatic generation of component properties and usage examples.
Step 4. Integrate the Design System into the Product
When the library is ready, it is important to ensure proper integration into real projects:
publish component versions as an npm package,
use CI/CD for automatic delivery of updates,
plan migrations between versions,
ensure that all teams use the same system.
How OneEntry Reinvents Design System Management
In 2025, design systems are no longer just a set of components stored in a frontend repository. Teams need a unified space where they can store tokens, manage themes, synchronize visual parameters across platforms, and apply changes centrally. This is exactly the role OneEntry takes on, transforming the design system into a full-fledged part of the product architecture.
1. Centralized Storage of Design Tokens
In OneEntry, tokens become first-class entities accessible through the API and SDK. You can store color variables, fonts, spacing parameters, breakpoints, radii, and themes. When you update the primary color, the change is automatically applied across all interfaces using OneEntry, eliminating outdated themes and manual style updates.
2. Token Integration Through the SDK
OneEntry provides a convenient JS/TS SDK that makes it possible to:
fetch tokens directly from the cloud,
generate CSS Variables or a Tailwind configuration,
synchronize themes across projects.
This prevents the typical chaos where a designer changes a color, developers forget to update it, and the production version ends up inconsistent. In OneEntry, tokens are stored centrally and always remain up to date.
3. Consistency Across All Platforms
The same set of tokens is used in Next.js, React Native, Vue/Nuxt, and Angular. This ensures a unified visual style regardless of technology, team, or device. For large products with multiple frontends, this is critically important.
4. Visual Interface Assembly Aligned With the Design System
If a product is built from modules, OneEntry allows you to apply tokens directly during visual configuration of interfaces. This means that marketers, content managers, and product owners can create pages and modules without stepping outside the design system. As a result, the platform maintains design standards at every level.
Automation in 2025: A Design System That Updates Itself
Modern development processes are moving toward maximum automation. A design system becomes a living mechanism that updates and synchronizes without manual intervention. Today, the following practices are considered standard in mature teams:
synchronization of Figma, design tokens, and the frontend within a single delivery pipeline;
automated accessibility checks in CI (axe, eslint-a11y);
documentation generation without manual editing;
theming at the component level;
integration with BaaS platforms like OneEntry for centralized configuration storage.
Use Cases for Design Systems
Large Companies - Multiple teams work on a single product, so a unified token system eliminates visual inconsistency and reduces design drift.
SaaS Products - A design system ensures stability, clean releases, and fast interface updates.
E-commerce - The storefront, admin panel, and user account share a unified visual style, creating a cohesive user experience.
Products with Multiple Platforms - Web, mobile, desktop, and TV interfaces follow a shared visual model based on a single set of tokens and rules.
Recommendations and Best Practices
start your system with tokens rather than individual components;
introduce mandatory token reviews before publishing;
follow component versioning practices (semver);
automate everything possible: documentation, tests, accessibility checks;
keep tokens in a single centralized source to avoid inconsistencies across teams and projects.
We created this article because we work every day with real teams facing the challenge of building high-quality interfaces and scaling products without chaos. Our approach is based on the idea of centralized tokens and a unified architecture available across all platforms. We continue to develop OneEntry to make design systems easier to manage, faster to update, and more reliable for large, distributed teams.
Thank you for reading this article to the end, and stay with us!
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