Design Systems Portfolio Tips & Tricks | Into Design Systems Conference

In this session from the Into Design Systems Conference, Justine Montgomery (Design Systems @ Stripe) breaks down how to build a design systems portfolio that actually lands you the job, even when most of your work is locked behind NDAs. Three years ago she was sitting in the audience with zero design systems experience. Now she shares the exact approach that took her from self-taught graphic designer to design system specialist at Stripe. You will learn how to pick the right case study, who you are really designing your portfolio for, how to turn a single component like a date picker into a full story, how to talk about impact in a language leadership understands and how to get around NDAs without hiding everything behind a password. Romina Kavcic hosts and runs the audience Q&A at the end. Timestamps 00:00 – Intro: Justine's path to Design Systems @ Stripe 03:34 – Treat your case study as a passion project 05:26 – Where to start and who you are designing for 09:50 – Case study idea 1: one component deep dive (the date picker) 11:21 – Case study idea 2: implement tokens 12:49 – Case study idea 3: a 0 to 1 process 16:46 – Build the case study before the website 19:14 – Stop making people guess: zoom in, not out 23:21 – Tie design to business impact and leadership language 30:01 – Mistakes to avoid: over-design, passwords, link-outs 35:03 – Get testimonials to validate NDA work 36:17 – Key takeaways 41:40 – Q&A: metrics, biggest mistakes and animation tools 46:32 – Wrap-up Links Mentioned: Jitter (animation tool): https://jitter.video/ Atlassian Design System: https://atlassian.design/ Material UI: https://mui.com/ Articulating Design Decisions (book by Tom Greever): https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/... 🎥 Watch all Into Design Systems conference recordings: https://www.intodesignsystems.com/ Key Points • You can land a design system role with one strong case study, you do not need a fancy website first. • Treat your case studies like passion projects. If you are not enjoying making it, the person viewing it will not enjoy it either. • People love to see the failures, not just the outcomes, because you only really learn once you fail. • Pick one component like a date picker and go deep: states, edge cases, tokens, theming and collaboration with engineers tell a whole story. • Design is only about 30% of the job. The community, documentation, communication and advocating matter just as much. • NDAs are not a wall. Build unbranded fake projects to show how you think, and gather testimonials to validate the work you cannot show. • Stop making people guess. Zoom in on the actual problem instead of zooming out to show a wall of artboards and sticky notes. Learn Design Systems from experts at WhatsApp, Atlassian, Miro, Figma and more: https://www.intodesignsystems.com/ FIND US ON SOCIAL LinkedIn:   / into-design-systems