AOL Design System 2025 — A complete redesign and system rebuild of AOL’s web experience. AOL had design artifacts, but no shared system language — resulting in slow delivery, inconsistent QA, and repeated rework between design and engineering. I rebuilt the system to unify design, PM, and engineering under one scalable framework, cutting delivery time by over 50%.
My goal was to transform non-systemized design work into a unified, scalable design system that accelerated collaboration across design, PM, and engineering. In parallel, I led visual unification and contributed to data-informed layout redesigns that improved overall product consistency and performance.
I made the call to reduce visual flexibility in favor of enforceable tokens — a decision that initially met resistance from designers but ultimately enabled reliable handoff and scale.
Established responsive grid & type rules for scalable, accessible hierarchy across breakpoints.
Defined Tailwind-based spacing, color, and type naming; generated engineer-ready tokens with clear documentation. Because these are the system’s backbone, I partnered 1:1 with engineering to cross-verify specs in code (breakpoints, line-height, letter-spacing, contrast) and lock accuracy end-to-end.
From Tokens to Interfaces
Built semantic color and interaction tokens powering 100+ reusable components.
Design-to-code inspection + token checks
Reduced QA review cycles by 70% through automated token-based validation.
System Adoption & Ops
Defined DS Ops rhythm and governance model, ensuring long-term scalability and adoption.
