Design System Office Hours

Ep 106: Design Isn’t Dead. It’s Just Working With Agents.

Are designers working in code, or directing agents that write it for them? Davy and PJ dig into the shifting role of Figma, the skills designers need to guide AI-assisted

Ep 105: What's an AI-Native DS?

We discuss, you guess it, whatever ai-native means in the world of design systems, including that start of a new phase of PJ and Davy's design system spec that originated

Ep 104: The Governance Junk Drawer

Davy and PJ debate how automation, visible chaos, and human judgment can help teams move fast without turning the design system into an expensive junk drawer.

Ep 103: Config 2026 Recap

Davy returns from Config with a backpack full of new Figma features. Also our annual discussion of were these releases for us?

Ep 102: Figma's History with AI

From the comical wizard prompts of 2024 to the heavy-lifting reality of Figma MCP, Davy and PJ chart the compressed timeline of design system and canvas automation.

Ep 101: Sharing Ideas and Open Source

Why do we build in public when corporate nature tells us to hoard our work? Davy and PJ break down the unglamorous reality of sharing open-source tools, micro-contributio

Ep 100: Happy Podcast Bday, and Schemas

We hit the Centennial! In our 100th episode, Davy and PJ look back on 4 years of our design systems chatter, before diving deep into the future of design systems: a commu

Ep 99: Durable vs Temporal Artifacts

Davy talks about trading a week of manual Figma updates for a "code-to-canvas" workflow that gets us "close enough" while PJ talks about running multiple worker-based age

Ep 98: Zeroheight's 2026 DS Report Chatter

Davy and PJ dive into the Zeroheight's 2026 Design Systems Survey to figure out why 61% of teams are drowning in work while a third of them still have "no plans" to autom

Ep 97: Tokenize Everything

Davy and PJ dive into the future of design tokens, exploring how to "tokenize everything" from complex color transformations (OKLCH) to utility tokens for motion and cont

Ep 96: Trying Out New Tooling

Davy and PJ discuss why the future of design workflow isn't just better handoff—it’s starting with the code itself.

Ep 95: When Docs Becomes a Liability

Davy and PJ discuss the "liability" of stale documentation and why AI still needs human oversight. They explore using Figma’s API to automate visual updates and kill the

Ep 94: Tech Dependencies

Building vs. Inheriting: Davy and PJ discuss the performance cost of design system dependencies. Learn how to choose the right framework without bloating your system or l

Ep 93: 2026 and our 4th Podcast Bday

Davy and PJ celebrate four years of Design System Office Hours by looking ahead at the shifting landscape of 2026. They explore how interoperability, open-source tooling,

Ep 92: Naming is Hard

Davy and PJ tackle the notorious difficulty of naming in design systems, advocating for human-readable, descriptive language over "cute" metaphors and discussing how AI i

Ep 91: The Erosion of Open Design Systems

Davy and PJ discuss a potential trend of major design systems going from public to internal only, stressing that public documentation is the ultimate forcing function for

Ep 90: WTF is Craft

Davy and PJ talk about the term "craft," emphasizing that high-quality design work requires designers to understand engineering constraints and that a good design system

Ep 89: Figma Slots Conference

Davy talks to PJ about his trip to see Figma's slots conference, formerly known as Schema. We talk about the releases and rejoice on a focus on the main editor again.

Ep 88: Stay in Learning Mode w/ Ben Callahan

Davy talks to friend of the program, Ben Callahan from Sparkbox about his series The Question, which brings together design system designers bi-weekly to share and learn

Ep 87: Thinking Like an Engineer

Davy and PJ talk about how amongst many good engineering traits, the rigor, and ways they work should be more adopted by product designers and specially us, maintainers.