On Theme: Design Systems in Depth

Murphy Trueman joins me to dig into something most design system teams already know but haven't wanted to say out loud: your design system isn't ready for AI. Ambiguous tokens, undocumented rules, and a lack of parity that only works because experienced humans know how to use the system... we've been getting away with it for years. AI just made the bill come due. We discuss what it actually means to treat your design system like a semantic API, how to think about governance, and why the fixes AI demands are ones we probably should have made years ago. Plus, what it means to allow more roles (and LLMs) to build with the system, and and what teams can do right now to get their house in order.
Resources & Links
https://murphytrueman.com/
https://blog.murphytrueman.com/
https://designsystemsforai.com/
https://designsystemops.com/
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Maya draws on her experience as a design systems PM at both REI and lululemon to explore what makes ecommerce design systems distinct. From the component library decisions to supporting editorial flexibility and brand storytelling, this episode digs into the real differences between ecommerce systems and other product contexts — and what's driving non-tech companies to invest in designs systems now.
Resources & Links
Maya Hampton on LinkedIn
Maya's writing on Medium
Driving design system adoption
REI Cedar system

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There’s so much happening in the world of design systems: so much noise, so many new tools, and so much pressure. Where to start?
Building on what I wrote on the Zeroheight blog, in this minisode I’m offering tactical suggestions for cutting through the noise.
I cover the three areas you should be focusing on in your design system right now—MCPs, skills, and agents.md; how to get started designing with code; and defining design guidelines and semantic components—plus a detour into governance and ways of working.
But the bit that’s occupying my brain space right now is that I believe that design system practitioners are uniquely positioned to help organizations change how they work with AI, because we own the layer that says: this is how you build UI and how design and engineering collaborate. 
Maybe the most important thing that you can be doing is thinking about how you can help your product teams think about what it means to build products today, and how we do it.

Resources
My writing for Zeroheight:AI in design systems: What’s changing in 2026
3 practical ways LLMs can support design systems teams today (Oct 2025)

Some Murphy Trueman hits:The prompt you never wrote
Your next design system user is an agent
Your design system might be AI-ready. Your organisation probably isn't.
Your design system has opinions. They're just not being enforced
The AI feedback loop: When design systems train the models that critique them
The bidirectional design system: When code talks back to design

Erika Flowers, Open Vector
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Y’all know I am fully bought in on design-with-code tools, so I loved this episode with Robin Cannon, VP of Product at Knapsack and former IBM Carbon and J.P. Morgan Salt design system exec, on why he thinks the infinite canvas is obsolete, and what we might replace it with. 
Robin chats with us about a future where software design happens in the same medium as production code, making the “infinite canvas” abstraction obsolete. But what does “designing with code” really look like today… and in the future? We explore a world with tools that could enable us to build with design-system rules plus broader product context. Plus we discuss why today’s design-with-code tools aren’t quite there yet, the enterprise barriers to working in new ways, and you as a designer can make this shift.

Links & References
Robin Cannon on LinkedIn
robin-cannon.com
Building for coherence, not compliance, lessons from Baldurs Gate 3, by Murphy Trueman
Erika Flowers, Zero Vector and Open Vector design approach
Agentic Development is just MMOs for Coding, and I am LFG, Erika Flowers
Knapsack
Dessn and Mockdown

💖 Season 2 of On Theme is officially here! 🎉 💖 If you like what you're hearing from On Theme, hit subscribe in your favorite podcast platform and sign up to get episode release notes at designsystemsontheme.com! On Theme is  sponsor free and listener supported, so please support the show with a monthly donation.

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Noelle joins me again for some 2026 predictions trend encapsulations, and we try to unpack the absolute madness of the first two months of 2026. 
1️⃣  Designing with code is in, making pictures of UIs is out. 
2️⃣ The new critical deliverables for systems teams are design guidelines, agent rules, tokens, and semantic APIs. 
3️⃣ We're gonna see a real focus on brand expression, but also on one-offs. 
4️⃣ Design system teams, you do organizational behavior change. 
5️⃣ The next chapter of the design system narrative is around quality rather than efficiency. 
Plus: the rise of the design engineer and a return to the early 2000s ways of working? I hope so!, nothingburger brands, and design systems gatekeeping.
Season 2 of On Theme is officially here! 🎉 💖 If you like what you're hearing from On Theme, please hit subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. On Theme is  sponsor free and listener supported, so please support the show with a monthly donation.
📲 Send me a text!
Support the show