I had the tremendous honor of being the first guest on Elyse Holladay‘s new podcast, On Theme: Design Systems In Depth!

Brad Frost takes us back in time to the early days of design systems, and walks us through some of the significant moments of evolution from style guides to modern design systems. We dig in to the multiple proto-Storybook-esque projects, the original problem of sharing UI patterns, what React did, and Brad’s personal moment of “oh, it’s called design systems now.” Plus, a bonus podcast throwback from the Style Guides Podcast feat. Dave Rupert and some early proto-Storybook madness.

It was fun to stroll down memory lane and retrace the steps of how we’ve gotten to today’s design system landscape.

Elyse released this podcast as she’s been displaced by the LA wildfires. I can’t even imagine! Because Elyse is such a great person, she set up a fundraiser to help feed people who were affected by the fires. We decided to donate a percentage of preorder sales of our design tokens course to the cause, and I’m proud to announce that we’ve donated $1,350 so far!