133. Garth Braithwaite on Design Tokens, Governance, and Scaling Spectrum at Adobe

In this episode of the Design Systems Podcast, Christopher Bloom interviews Garth Braithwaite from the Adobe Spectrum team about design systems, focusing on Spectrum's architecture, design tokens, and the challenges of managing a large design system across multiple platforms and teams. Garth shares his journey from designer to engineer, the importance of CSS as a universal language, and the evolution of Spectrum's design tokens. He emphasizes the significance of a content strategist in naming conventions and the need for engineers to be more involved in design systems. The discussion also covers versioning, accessibility, and the future of design systems, including the potential role of AI. Garth advocates for open-source contributions and highlights the value of building infrastructure that product owners find beneficial, rather than enforcing strict design system rules.