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Feature request: Design System styles


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I'd like to propose a Separation of Concerns
by implementing a comprehensive Design System concept.

Currently, we can define Paragraph Styles and Character Styles, as well as Global Colors.
Particularly brand designers think in terms of style "purpose" and not just concrete, final style definitions,
e.g. we think "Headline Highlight style", and not just "bright blue brand color".

What's the difference?

If I have applied the "bright blue brand color" to e.g. Paragraph Decorations of a headline, as well as to the Stroke of multiple objects placed next to the headline, so they are of the same color, and want to change Headline Colors to "bright yellow brand color" across an entire document, I am currently forced to

  • change the global color "bright blue brand color" to the yellow one and to also rename the color name … however, now ALL objects, that were bright blue, not only Headline objects, are also yellow
    — so I have to also:
  • create multiple applications of "bright blue brand color", e.g. "bright blue brand headline", "bright blue brand background", etc.
  • now that I have multiple instances of "bright blue", once the color needs to be adjusted, I have to go in and update ALL of them — which defeats the purpose of having global colors

Better is:

We have purpose oriented styles "Headline Highlight style", and can assign this to final objects, Paragraphs etc., while the unique global color "bright blue brand color" is used within the "Headline Highlight" style.

Now that concerns are separated, I can easily assign a different global color to the "Headline Highlight" style when necessary, and also have a single point of change (the global color), in case that needs to be tuned, even just before production.

With a Design System, not just (global) colors and other styles get assigned to final objects and typography, but "purpose styles", that serve as a design-domain-level intermediary, are used.

With the acquisition by Canva, who also are interested in serving the practical application in design, developing a Design System approach to working with styles may be a good step into an even more designer centric future.

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