Case 01 · Design Systems · 2025

Meridian

Rebuilding a design system from first principles — one source of truth for a product that had quietly grown three of them.

Role: [Your role]
Timeline: [e.g. 4 months]
Team: [e.g. 2 designers, 4 engineers]
Platform: [Web · iOS]

Overview

A short summary of what Meridian was and why it mattered.

Open with two or three sentences that frame the project the way you'd describe it to a hiring manager in a hallway. What was the product, what state was it in, and what were you asked to do? Keep it plain and specific — the numbers and nuance come later.

[Replace this paragraph with the one-breath version of the story: the before, the shift you led, and the after.]

Figure — hero screen / system overview

Caption: what this screen shows and why it's the right opener.

The Problem

What was broken, and who was feeling it.

Describe the real, grounded problem. Not "the UI was inconsistent" in the abstract — the specific friction: the four subtly different button styles, the handoffs that took three rounds, the engineers reinventing the same modal. Ground it in people.

[Add a sentence on the cost of the problem — time lost, bugs shipped, trust eroded — so the reader feels the stakes.]

Approach

How you worked the problem.

Walk through your process in a few honest beats: how you audited what existed, the calls you made and the tradeoffs behind them, and the moments where you changed your mind. Show judgment, not just steps.

Figure — before

Figure — after

Caption: a before/after that makes the shift legible at a glance.

Outcome

What changed once it shipped.

Close with impact, in whatever terms are true and honest — adoption, velocity, a metric that moved, or qualitative shifts in how the team worked. If you have numbers, this is where they land.

[End with a short reflection: what you'd do differently, or what the work taught you.]