Hey and welcome back to another week! 👋 

In this issue:

• Design Systems Explained: What they are and why they are a great skill and topic to invest into for juniors.

• Andrea’s Portfolio: This is just a must-see portfolio. Don’t skip it.

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Why Design Systems Are a Great Skill Juniors Can Invest into in 2025 🏗️

Design systems sit in a strange place for early-career designers. Everyone agrees they’re important. Everyone expects you to know the basics. Yet very few juniors ever actually get the chance to work with one in a meaningful way. And even fewer understand what a design system really is beyond a well-organized Figma file.

But here’s the truth:

If you’re looking for a skill that compounds, works in startups and corporates alike, signals systems thinking, and helps you collaborate more effectively with engineering, then design systems are still one of the best bets in 2025.

And unlike a few years ago, you now have AI-assisted ways to learn, practice, demo, and even ship design-system-level work without waiting for a team to hand you that opportunity.

Let’s unpack how to approach design systems as a junior today, how to use them in case studies, and how to leverage the massive shift happening through vibe-coding and MCP workflows (don’t be afraid).

Understanding What a Design System Actually Is

Most juniors still mix up design systems, style guides, UI kits, and token libraries. It’s understandable—real design systems are rarely taught, and most companies don’t have mature ones.

So let’s be clear:

A real design system isn’t a pretty Figma playground. It is a living, code-integrated system that ensures consistency, shared language, implementation accuracy, and predictable product development. It connects design decisions to engineering reality. It reduces ambiguity. It makes teams faster. It scales.

And that’s exactly why design systems are such a high-leverage learning area: they force you to think systematically, not just aesthetically.

In startups, this skill helps you bring clarity to chaos.

In corporates, this skill helps you collaborate effectively in a highly structured environment.

In every environment, it sets you apart.

How Juniors Can Actually Learn Design Systems (Instead of Just Reading About Them)

A few years ago, learning design systems without a job context was nearly impossible. You couldn’t build one alone. You couldn’t test it. You couldn’t connect it to code. You couldn’t ship it.

Now?

The landscape has changed completely.

You can ramp up in a structured way:

1. Dan Mall’s free courses (still the gold-standard entry point):

   • How to Use a Design System in Figma — perfect for beginners

   • Make Design Systems People Want to Use — perfect if you want to build or contribute to one

     These two together give you a foundation that many mid-level designers still lack.

2. The Design Systems Database (designsystems.surf)

   Find real systems like Pinterest’s Gestalt, Shopify Polaris, Atlassian, Gov.uk, etc.

   You can practice with the exact same building blocks used in production. Most of these have Figma files available you can directly use in your project.

3. New 2025 tools and workflows that close the “Figma → Code” gap

   This is the big shift juniors must understand: in 2025, a design system isn’t just a Figma library.

   It’s a vibe-coded, MCP-supported, AI-connected set of components that you can preview, iterate on, and understand in real code.

   Designers no longer hit a wall when the code conversation starts.

This is one of the biggest reasons I now recommend design systems as a junior-friendly niche: the barrier to entry just dropped dramatically.

Using an Existing Design System in a Case Study

This is still the best way for juniors to show design-system experience without having worked in a company that uses one.

The process still works in 2025, but now you can enrich it using newer workflows.

Here’s the updated approach:

1. Start with Dan Mall’s beginner course to learn how to consume a design system properly.

2. Pick a publicly available design system from designsystems.surf.

   Examples: Gestalt, Polaris, Lightning, Carbon.

3. Choose a niche problem (not a full product) and define success metrics.

   For example: “Reduce friction in a checkout step” or “Clarify pricing summaries.”

4. Design your solution using that system’s components and guidelines strictly.

   This is where many juniors often fumble—strict adherence is the skill.

5. Evaluate the outcome against your metrics.

6. Summarize what was hard, what was helpful, and where the system either empowered or constrained you.

7. Bonus for 2025: Take the Figma components you used and push them into a live environment.

   The next section has a few useful links if you want to dive deeper here.

These let you show your design-realism maturity even without a dev team.

When you present this as a case study, emphasize:

• “Applied an industry-grade design system (Gestalt)”

• “Followed tokens, guidelines, and accessibility standards”

• “Reflected on system constraints”

• “Demonstrated systems thinking”

This alone already places you in the top 10–20% of junior applicants for roles that look for design system skills as part of their requirements.

Building or Contributing to a Design System (If You Have Real Project Access)

If you’ve been lucky enough to touch a real design system—internship, contract, side project—this deserves a full case study. And a good one can carry your portfolio on its own.

Michelle Sredni’s system case study is still a strong public example of how to do this well.

If you have similar experience, highlight:

• Necessity (why the system had to be created or improved)

• Adoption (how different teams used it)

• Consistency gains

• Collaboration with engineering

• How components were versioned, documented, or validated

• Business impact, even if qualitative (“reduced inconsistencies by ~40%”, “reduced dev back-and-forth”)

And for 2025, add one more angle: how components moved into real code—or why they didn’t.

Even showing that you understand the handoff challenges makes you look senior.

The 2025 Shift: Design Systems Are Now Vibe-Codeable

This is the part that wasn’t possible when we wrote the original piece.

If you want to stand out today, you should understand (even at a beginner level) how design systems connect to live code. And with Lovable and Cursor, it’s shockingly easy to get started.

You can now:

• Take a design system file in Figma

• Push it through MCP

• Get a runnable React component library in under 5 minutes

• See your components rendered exactly like a developer would

• Iterate quickly using an AI agent

• Test accessibility or responsiveness in real code

• Build a documentation site automatically

You don’t need to be an engineer to do this.

You just need to be curious.

This is the single biggest advancement I’ve seen in the design-systems space for juniors.

And it means: you can demonstrate design–engineering awareness without having ever worked in a company that has a design system.

Even building one small component—card, button, input—using this workflow already sets you apart.

If you want to dive deeper, here are the links again in context:

• Sil Bormüller’s MCP walkthrough (Figma → Cursor → live component)

• Joey Gross on AI-accelerated system creation

• John Rodrigues on MCP-powered design-system tooling

These are worth studying or even recreating as a micro-project in your portfolio.

Final Thoughts

Design systems aren’t trendy; they’re foundational.

And in 2025, they’re also far more accessible than ever before.

If you want a skill that:

• shows depth

• demonstrates systems thinking

• builds collaboration credibility

• prepares you for both startup chaos and corporate rigor

• and integrates naturally with modern AI tooling

…design systems remain one of the smartest niches to explore early in your career.

You don’t need a formal role to get started.

You just need curiosity, a real system to study, and one good project to show you can apply it.

If you’ve been looking for a sign to add a new case study to your portfolio—this might be it.

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👀 Portfolio Showcase

Today: Andrea Da Silva

Andrea Da Silva’s portfolio is one of those rare early-career surfaces that immediately feels different — crafted, alive, and unmistakably personal from the first interaction.

Shared recently by Ridd — one of the sharpest eyes and clearest tastemakers in the design community — Andrea’s work comes with a level of endorsement that is almost unheard of for a junior designer. Ritt doesn’t typically surface early-career portfolios at all, so when he called this one out, it was clear there was something worth paying attention to. And he was right. Andrea’s site shows a designer who understands craft far beyond her years, blending personality, motion, and intention into a cohesive product that genuinely stands out.

What makes her portfolio particularly compelling is how considered it feels. Every hover state, every transition, every illustration, every moment of motion has a purpose. Andrea brings a deeply personal tone to her surface, yet anchors it in a high bar of visual and interaction design that never drifts into excess. This is a bespoke portfolio — not a template, not a patchwork, but a product with a point of view.

For anyone wondering what it looks like when a junior designer leverages personality, taste, and craft to create a uniquely memorable presence, Andrea’s portfolio is one of the best recent examples. Let’s take a closer look at what makes it exceptional — and where some refinement can push it even further.

That’s it for this week—thanks so much for the support! ♥️

Do you want your own portfolio reviewed in-depth with a 30-minute advice-packed video review? Or do you require mentoring to figure out a proper strategy for your job search?

I got you!

• Book an in-depth portfolio or resume review with me

• Book a mentoring session with me

• Book a quick 15 min chat to ask a question and see if we vibe

Keep kicking doors open and see you next week!
- Florian