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Typographic documentation is for designers generally, but there is a world where this can actually help everyone. Designers should make consistent designs. By d

Typographic documentation is for designers generally, but there is a world where this can actually help everyone. Designers should make consistent designs. By doing this Developers can create functional designs systems that have sane default behaviors. Once you can get to that point, the system serves to reduce the load from the dev, not increase. I have created a tailwind-based design system interpretation like this in the education space at a rather large scale. Our designs and our tailwind-config comes from the same spec. Doing this removes the engineer from thought by reducing options and possibilities. It also serves as check and balance. Paddings, font-weights, all of it are consistent. Designs that deviate from line-height, padding, weights, colors, etc are incorrect mocks and our configured values will make it obvious to the dev. Code that deviates from the spec is incorrect. This requires a good communication flow between Eng and UX but actually works in practice. In a functioning system, it is a weight off your shoulders as you end up knowing the defaults just by looking at something. Might I also remind you, the point of the entire backend of an app is to serve the front end. An app with amazing backend practices but fails at matching designs or specs is just a failure and is noticeable by customers.

blowski 3y ago
I agree with much of your comment, but take umbrage with: > the point of the entire backend of an app is to serve the front end It’s a phoney argument. Once can just as easily say “the whole point of a front end is to provide simple access to the backend, rather than doing it via APIs”. The whole system is important. Some backends have appalling frontends and are still popular. The opposite is also true.
- agloe_dreams 3y ago
  I was kinda hoping that the OP would counter with that line and then I would agree and make exactly your point haha. My point was simply that the system is interdependent as opposed to the OP's take that the FE consistency doesn't matter.
  - Kon5ole 3y ago
    >the OP's take that the FE consistency doesn't matter. No no, FE consistency matters for sure! I really appreciate a good brand identity document, it's really nice to have. But using Arial everywhere would also be consistent, right?
- jamwil 3y ago
  I think what he’s trying to say is that to the user of the system, the front end is the system. To a non-engineer its just an app and nobody knows or cares what end goes where.
Kon5ole 3y ago
Good points which I generally agree with, but I still think it's common to see a remarkable level of time and effort spent on typography compared to even other parts of the frontend. Not always, but surprisingly often. Many companies have these style guides around typography. Beautiful, thoughtful, very well made things for sure, yet when some backend dev makes a typo so the custom font drops to arial or whatever, it can be days before someone notices and the ones who notice are the font nerds from marketing. Nobody else seems to mind much. Compare that with what happens if someone misunderstands the 20 year old SQL schema and writes the wrong magic string to a table. Instant crash, everybody notices immediately. Yet database schemas for internal applications tend not to be documented in Porsche-brochure-like sites like this Sweden Sans is. How did the typography guys get a voice so strong? Note that I don't mind it, I like to see well made things in general, but it's puzzling. It's like there is a secret society of typography nerds that have spread to all major organisations. >Might I also remind you, the point of the entire backend of an app is to serve the front end. An app with amazing backend practices but fails at matching designs or specs is just a failure and is noticeable by customers. Just checked my notes and it turns out that frontend is just a temporary fashion-dictated skin over the actually important features of the backend! ;-)
- jacobolus 3y ago
  > How did the typography guys get a voice so strong? In my opinion the "typography guys" don't have an especially stronger "voice" than anyone else. They just do a job once, get paid some (relatively small) amount for it, and then move on to the next project. At the biggest these projects involve a few people working for a year or two. Their entire job is about communication, sales, and sweating small design details, so it's no wonder they do a relatively good job at those. The amount of work those "20 year old SQL schemas" take, once you include every bit of other comparable detail across a whole organization, is (at least) thousands of times bigger and more complicated. Overall the "code guys" have much more resources spent, spend a lot more time, and everyone ultimately cares a lot more about their output. They are large teams of either long-term employees or long-term contractors, whose work never really ends. In short: Code is a sprawling mess rather than a cutely packaged self-contained thing. Unsurprisingly it's harder to make sense of at a glance.
- 3y ago
phatskat 3y ago
Do you have any good recommendations for designing the design system? I’m currently in a position where our designs don’t always “fit” the spec that in theory exists. I’d like to get us on tailwind but widths and paddings and margins at times have weird divisions (I tried getting a rem to fit the px from the design and 1.24444…was close enough. It’s 1.25 and I won’t be bothered to fix it)
indigochill 3y ago
> Our designs and our tailwind-config comes from the same spec. Is this the design system you created, or is this something others can use (or both)? As someone who's avoided frontend work primarily because I find CSS tedious, having a system over top of it that speaks design language sounds interesting. Admittedly, looking at Tailwind now, looks like it's worth just trying that to start with.

blowski 3y ago

I agree with much of your comment, but take umbrage with: > the point of the entire backend of an app is to serve the front end It’s a phoney argument. Once can just as easily say “the whole point of a front end is to provide simple access to the backend, rather than doing it via APIs”. The whole system is important. Some backends have appalling frontends and are still popular. The opposite is also true.

agloe_dreams 3y ago
I was kinda hoping that the OP would counter with that line and then I would agree and make exactly your point haha. My point was simply that the system is interdependent as opposed to the OP's take that the FE consistency doesn't matter.
- Kon5ole 3y ago
  >the OP's take that the FE consistency doesn't matter. No no, FE consistency matters for sure! I really appreciate a good brand identity document, it's really nice to have. But using Arial everywhere would also be consistent, right?
jamwil 3y ago
I think what he’s trying to say is that to the user of the system, the front end is the system. To a non-engineer its just an app and nobody knows or cares what end goes where.

Kon5ole 3y ago

Good points which I generally agree with, but I still think it's common to see a remarkable level of time and effort spent on typography compared to even other parts of the frontend. Not always, but surprisingly often. Many companies have these style guides around typography. Beautiful, thoughtful, very well made things for sure, yet when some backend dev makes a typo so the custom font drops to arial or whatever, it can be days before someone notices and the ones who notice are the font nerds from marketing. Nobody else seems to mind much. Compare that with what happens if someone misunderstands the 20 year old SQL schema and writes the wrong magic string to a table. Instant crash, everybody notices immediately. Yet database schemas for internal applications tend not to be documented in Porsche-brochure-like sites like this Sweden Sans is. How did the typography guys get a voice so strong? Note that I don't mind it, I like to see well made things in general, but it's puzzling. It's like there is a secret society of typography nerds that have spread to all major organisations. >Might I also remind you, the point of the entire backend of an app is to serve the front end. An app with amazing backend practices but fails at matching designs or specs is just a failure and is noticeable by customers. Just checked my notes and it turns out that frontend is just a temporary fashion-dictated skin over the actually important features of the backend! ;-)

jacobolus 3y ago
> How did the typography guys get a voice so strong? In my opinion the "typography guys" don't have an especially stronger "voice" than anyone else. They just do a job once, get paid some (relatively small) amount for it, and then move on to the next project. At the biggest these projects involve a few people working for a year or two. Their entire job is about communication, sales, and sweating small design details, so it's no wonder they do a relatively good job at those. The amount of work those "20 year old SQL schemas" take, once you include every bit of other comparable detail across a whole organization, is (at least) thousands of times bigger and more complicated. Overall the "code guys" have much more resources spent, spend a lot more time, and everyone ultimately cares a lot more about their output. They are large teams of either long-term employees or long-term contractors, whose work never really ends. In short: Code is a sprawling mess rather than a cutely packaged self-contained thing. Unsurprisingly it's harder to make sense of at a glance.
3y ago

phatskat 3y ago

Do you have any good recommendations for designing the design system? I’m currently in a position where our designs don’t always “fit” the spec that in theory exists. I’d like to get us on tailwind but widths and paddings and margins at times have weird divisions (I tried getting a rem to fit the px from the design and 1.24444…was close enough. It’s 1.25 and I won’t be bothered to fix it)

indigochill 3y ago

> Our designs and our tailwind-config comes from the same spec. Is this the design system you created, or is this something others can use (or both)? As someone who's avoided frontend work primarily because I find CSS tedious, having a system over top of it that speaks design language sounds interesting. Admittedly, looking at Tailwind now, looks like it's worth just trying that to start with.