10 minute read

Creating Bombardier Aerospace’s Design System in Figma.

Follow along to see how I moved Bombardier Aerospace’s design system from Invision, Sketch, and Adobe XD to Figma.

📈️ Impacts

Problems with Bombardier’s old design system:

Solution  

Figma because it is cloud-based, has amazing collaboration features, and includes intuitive component libraries and management systems. 

I wrote a proposal, met with the design director and design teams, and got the “Go Ahead” with Figma.

Getting Started 

While completing cybersecurity assessments and waiting for funding, I started mapping out the transition plan.

Structuring Teams

I organized the Teams at Bombardier by product. I made sure the Teams were open to all Bombardier employees to encourage collaboration, exploration, and innovation.

Projects

Projects act as “folders” in a design system. I created a list of different types of projects to encourage consistency across teams. Establishing naming conventions helped designers and developers quickly find designs they were looking for. Also, I added an emoji convention so users can quickly identify the file type.

Project Workflow

The Design Workspace is meant for iterating solutions and getting messy. Once a designer finalizes a design with both the business and development teams, they should update the Truth project with their changes. This ensures that there is a single source of truth within a Team and avoids any confusion.

Files

I didn’t want to set a strict method for organizing Files because every Team is at different stages of their product and has unique goals.  

To find a balance between autonomy and consistency, I created covers to help communicate the description and status of each file. This gave designers the flexibility to create any kind of file they wanted while clearly describing what’s inside.

Inside a Truth File

To help designers set up and maintain their Truth project and Truth files, I established a guide.