The Core System
Building the foundation kit the studio's own commissions start from.
Context and constraints
Every Product Design and Design Systems commission we run needs a starting point — a token set and a base component library opinionated enough to move fast, general enough to adapt to a real brief. Before this project, that starting point didn’t exist in reusable form; every new engagement effectively rebuilt it from the last one’s files, extended a little further, cleaned up a little less. The constraint was internal, not external: no client, no outside deadline — it had to work as the actual base of a real commission before it could be considered done, not just look complete in isolation.
Decisions
01
Token set before components.
We built the full token layer — colour, type, spacing, elevation — before drawing a single component, so everything that followed inherited the system instead of hard-coding values that would need retrofitting later.
02
640+ components, one grid.
Every component, from a button to a 48-screen template, sits on the same spacing grid and the same interaction states. The count is high because the goal was coverage of a real product build, not a showcase set.
03
Documentation as a deliverable, not an afterthought.
Usage notes were written alongside each component, not after the kit was "finished," because a kit without documentation gets misused within a week of a real team adopting it.
04
Publish it, or keep proving it privately.
Once the kit had been used to start three internal commission drafts without needing structural changes, we decided it was stable enough to publish as Foundry UI Core rather than keep it internal-only.
Artifacts
Token sheet
Component grid
Page template index