BUILDING A DESIGN SYSTEM SPECCED FOR ENGINEERS AND AGENTS

Summary from the TLDR Design newsletter

Evil Martians partnered with Currents — a test observability platform — to address UI inconsistencies caused by AI-assisted coding without a design foundation, delivering a full design system in seven weeks. The audit, completed in roughly a third of the usual time with LLM assistance, uncovered 236 unique colors, two competing font systems, and multiple redundant icon libraries across 791 files. The resulting system — covering typography, icons, colors, and spacing — was deliberately built to be readable by both engineers and AI agents, removing the need for a designer in day-to-day decisions.