The W3C design system
The World Wide Web Consortium is a collection of member organizations and staff, founded and led by the man who literally invented the web, Tim Berners-Lee. They work to develop web standards, and ensure that the web is an open platform that works for everyone on every device.
This week, they unveiled their new design system, available for public use and built in conjunction with Studio 24.
The system is a dramatic visual improvement over their old design, with more readable typography and a pleasing color palette. There is, of course, a strong focus on accessibility, and in particular, showcasing how accessibility doesn’t have to be boring or ugly.
The system makes heavy use of my friend Andy Bell’s CUBE CSS methodology. The JavaScript architecture was influenced by how I structure my own code (full disclosure: one of my students worked on this project).
There are lots of smart Sass variables (if that’s your thing), well structured markup, and absolutely fantastic documentation.