The fact that we are nearly 10 years after the coining (yes) of the word "design token" in 2014, and design tools still don't take care of some of the most basic fundamentals of token primitives is a massive indictment of the industry.
To begin with, design tools should've been ahead of the game in conceiving of primitive management as a way to improve designers' lives. It shouldn't have taken a decade of development-led thinking to get here, and we're not even fully here for primitives.
As far as architecture goes, designers frankly shouldn't have to think about these matters at all, because the tools should expose such simplified controls and inputs for the hierarchical levels to not require any mapping or structural thinking on the designers' parts.
The amount of man hours that have been dedicated to this problem in code, with each company and design system individually re-solving what should be a solved problem once and for all within the design tools, is a catastrophe.
The fact that we are nearly 10 years after the coining (yes) of the word "design token" in 2014, and design tools still don't take care of some of the most basic fundamentals of token primitives is a massive indictment of the industry.
To begin with, design tools should've been ahead of the game in conceiving of primitive management as a way to improve designers' lives. It shouldn't have taken a decade of development-led thinking to get here, and we're not even fully here for primitives.
As far as architecture goes, designers frankly shouldn't have to think about these matters at all, because the tools should expose such simplified controls and inputs for the hierarchical levels to not require any mapping or structural thinking on the designers' parts.
The amount of man hours that have been dedicated to this problem in code, with each company and design system individually re-solving what should be a solved problem once and for all within the design tools, is a catastrophe.