SDS - Sustainable Design System
Project in process - Full case study coming soon
Internship at Grow / Product design / Research
Sustainable UX guide → Design System (In Progress)
During my internship at Grow, I created an educational Figma resource on digital sustainability that was duplicated by 200+ users. Three years later, with deeper UX and design system experience, I revisited the project and now evolving it into SDS — the Sustainable Design System.
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SDS will be a lightweight, scalable design system built to help designers and developers create cleaner, low-energy, and more accessible digital experiences. It will combine updated sustainability research with modern design system practices, transforming an educational resource into a practical, production-ready design toolkit.
Role
Product designer and Researcher
Support from:
Supervisor and product designer - John Frantzén
Product designer - Andrew Minto
Duration
March 2022 - June 2022
Updated version in 2026!
Links
What it was
During my product design internship at Grow, I researched digital sustainability and created a learning guide aimed at designers and developers to help them better understand the environmental impact of digital products and make more sustainable design and technical decisions.
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The learning guide translated sustainability research into clear, practical concepts, examples, and guidelines that could be applied directly in everyday design and development workflows. It was shared publicly through the Figma Community and adopted by 200+ users, validating strong interest in accessible, sustainability-focused educational resources for technical and design audiences.
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Key artifacts:
– Educational learning guide (Figma)
THE LEARNING GUIDE
A hands-on guide to sustainable UI design that shows how small design and development choices can reduce a website’s environmental impact without sacrificing the user experience.
Why I’m Expanding This Project
While the learning guide was valuable, it wasn’t built as a scalable system and it's information heavy. As I grow as a product designer, I’m revisiting this project to explore how it could evolve into a design system that teams can reuse, extend, and integrate into real workflows.
Design System Exploration
This is an early exploration of how the original sustainability guide could evolve into a scalable design system. The focus is on clarity, reusability, and supporting decision-making for designers and developers.
What I'm working on now:
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Translating educational concepts into reusable interface components
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Defining lightweight design foundations (color, typography) to support sustainability signals
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Designing and documenting an Impact Indicator component for technical UIs
A. Color Tokens
A small set of colors used for backgrounds, text, and to indicate different levels of environmental impact.
B. Typography
A small, functional type system optimized for dense, technical interfaces.
C. Impact Indicator
A reusable component that communicates environmental impact at a glance without interrupting technical workflows.
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D. UI Example
An example showing how environmental impact can be compared across different setup options to support clearer decision-making.
