DESIGN SYSTEMS · ORIGIN STORY · OPEN SOURCE
Silk: a public design system from Netguru
COMPANY
Netguru
ROLE
Lead Designer → Key Contributor
EXPERTISE
Design Systems · Components · Documentation
YEAR
2021 - 2023
Silk is Netguru's open-source design system, built to help product teams ship UI faster across mobile and web. It's a Figma library with components, tokens, sample screens, and documentation, used internally on client projects and now publicly available on Figma Community.
I joined the Silk team as a designer working on the visual design of the system - components, sample screens, and the visual language that hold the system together. I'm credited on Behance as one of the key contributors.
Timeline
Active contribution 2021 - 2023. The system continues to evolve under Netguru's design team and is now publicly available.
Background
Silk grew from internal need: client teams across Netguru were rebuilding similar components and patterns project after project. A shared design system made the work faster and more consistent. As a Lead designer on the team, I worked on how the system looks and feels - visual design of components, sample screens that show the system in use, and the visual decisions that keep different parts of Silk consistent.
Silk is a design system built inside a software consultancy - used across many client projects, with no single product owner. The work shapes itself differently in this kind of environment: components and documentation have to be reusable across very different products, brands, and teams.
Lifecycle
Design systems like Silk have a lifecycle that runs longer than any single contributor. People join, contribute, move on. The system keeps maturing as new designers and engineers come in, client needs shift, and the public version on Figma Community grows. Being a key contributor means doing the work that holds up after you're no longer the one doing it - components, screens, and visual decisions still in use today.
Public case study (Netguru)
Behance Case Study
Figma Community file
What this case demonstrates
Visual design of components, screens, and the visual language of a multi-product design system
Building documentation and specimens that work for teams using the system without direct contact
Long-term contribution to a system that became Netguru's open-source release