It was the last day of the Design Systems course at MrMarcel School when Laura asked me the question I couldn't get out of my head.
I fell silent.
I had been working for two years on a project for Alexa, a Conversational Design System. Multimodal interfaces that deployed across different screens, voice, gestures. Systems that orchestrated conversations, music, smart home, all synchronized. It was thinking big. Universe scale.
But that night I realized: Laura was asking me about the opposite side.
In the next 10 minutes I'm going to show you how to apply the 'Powers of Ten' methodology to systems design. You will discover why working on only one scale (macro or micro) limits your impact, and how thinking in both simultaneously can radically change your results.
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That dawn I remembered a 1977 film that changed how we see the world: "Powers of Ten" by Charles and Ray Eames.
The camera is 1 meter away.
Every 10 seconds, it zooms out 10 times further (10 meters, 100 meters, 1 kilometer…).
The park. The city. Illinois. United States. The Earth. The solar system. The galaxy. The observable universe.
We reached 10²⁴ meters. The edge of everything known.
Then it returns. To the picnic. And continues inward.
To the man's hand. To the skin. To the cells. To the molecules. To the atoms. To the quarks.
Down to 10^-16 meters. The minimum expression of matter.
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For two years I designed at the macro extreme.
A user in Boston says: "Alexa, good morning"
The system orchestrates:
* Reads personalized news
* Adjusts home lights
* Shows calendar on screen
* Synchronizes reminders on mobile
* Starts Spotify playlist
One phrase. Five experiences. Three devices. All coherent.
It was design at ecosystem scale. Thinking about how complex systems work together. The view from 10^24 meters.
But that night, after Laura's question, I realized something unsettling:
What happens when you go down 40 orders of magnitude? What is the minimum unit of a design system? The minimum expression that can encode meaning?
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I decided to apply "Powers of Ten" to the most empathetic case I could think of: digital wedding invitations.
The traditional scale (view from 10 meters):
I had 73 templates in Figma:
* "Romantic" Template #1
* "Modern" Template #2
* "Classic" Template #3
The process was the usual: couple chooses template, I change colors, adjust names and date, send. Rinse and repeat.
It's the "human" scale of design. Where we all normally operate.
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Instead of showing templates, I asked Laura (yes, my student) and her partner:
"How do you want your guests to feel when they receive the invitation?"
Laura and her partner: "Intimate, warm, familiar"
I didn't look for "Romantic Template #3".
I went down to the minimum expression. To the emotional tokens of the invitation:
It's like in the Eames film: when you go down to molecular scale, you discover that what seemed solid (a wedding template) is actually made of atoms (minimal emotional decisions).
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User: Alexa, I want a romantic atmosphere"
System orchestrates multiple devices:
* Lights → warm amber, 30% intensity
* Music → smooth jazz, low volume
* Screen → fireplace animation
* Temperature → goes up 2 degrees
One instruction. Four systems. All synchronized.
View from the universe: how complex experiences work together.
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But what makes "warm amber" feel romantic and not "bright white"?
There's the atom. The same principle applied to a wedding invitation:
⚠️ The insight: For Alexa to work at universe scale, someone had to design first at atom scale. Same with wedding invitations.
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Ana and Marcos respond differently: "Vibrant, international, celebration"
Micro Scale (the tokens of their invitation):
Macro Scale (their entire digital wedding experience):
From those atoms, the system automatically generates:
* Save the date (first contact)
Uses tokens: dynamic spacing, festive palette
Mood: "something big is coming"
* Main invitation (core experience)
Same tokens, more complex hierarchy
Mood: "international celebration"
* RSVP card (interaction)
Tokens applied to form
Mood: "respond with energy"
* Thank you notes (farewell)
Softer but recognizable tokens
Mood: "thanks for celebrating with us"
It's exactly like "Powers of Ten":
From 10^-16 (the
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Six months testing this approach with digital wedding invitations:
📊 Client satisfaction: 78% → 94%
⏱️ Iterations to approval: 5–7 → 2–3.
💰 Conversion rate: 23% → 41%
📈 Referrals: 12% → 38%
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Couples stopped asking "change this color for that" (macro thinking, template level) and started saying "it feels exactly like us" (coherence from micro, atom level).
Because when you design invitations from the minimal emotional expression upward, each piece inherits the couple's personality.
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Laura wasn't questioning design systems theory.
She was pointing to something deeper: we all think of design systems on only one scale.
I had spent two years at the macro extreme with Alexa:
* Multimodal experiences orchestrating devices
* Synchronized cross-platform systems
* Complex ecosystems of experiences
But I had ignored the opposite extreme in wedding invitations:
* What is the emotional atom of an invitation?
* What is the minimum expression that defines "romantic"?
* How is "family intimacy" encoded in a single token?
As in the Eames film: if you only see invitations from "full template", you never discover the emotional atoms that build them.
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This is how it works in both cases:
Micro Scale (10^-16): A color token
Molecular Scale (10^-8): A component
Cellular Scale (10^0): A complete scene
Ecosystem Scale (10^8): A complete experience
Each scale builds on the previous one. But without the right atoms at 10^-16, the entire universe at 10^24 feels generic.
Whether it's Alexa orchestrating your home or a wedding invitation arriving on your WhatsApp.
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#
I'm developing a methodology that operates in both directions:
When you go up (macro):
* From wedding tokens → save the date → invitation → complete experience
* Like building a celebration from its emotional atoms
When you go down (micro):
* From "I want an intimate wedding" → what palette? → what tokens define intimacy?
* Like understanding why an invitation feels a certain way
Whether in Alexa multimodal or in digital wedding invitations.
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On what scale do you normally design?
Have you thought about macro experiences (like Alexa, ecosystems)?
Have you gone down to micro scale (tokens that feel) in your projects?
What would you discover if you changed your scale 10x up or 10x down?
Exercise for today:
Take your last project. Identify what scale you worked on (full templates or basic tokens?). Now imagine: what would you discover if you went down/up 10 scales? Share your answer in comments.
#DesignSystems #PowersOfTen #SystemsThinking #EmotionalDesign #WeddingDesign #DesignScale
"Joan, we've spent months studying design systems. But I still don't understand how to connect theory with real practice. Why does everything feel so… flat?"
I fell silent.
I had been working for two years on a project for Alexa, a Conversational Design System. Multimodal interfaces that deployed across different screens, voice, gestures. Systems that orchestrated conversations, music, smart home, all synchronized. It was thinking big. Universe scale.
But that night I realized: Laura was asking me about the opposite side.
What if the next evolution was not upward, but downward?
In the next 10 minutes I'm going to show you how to apply the 'Powers of Ten' methodology to systems design. You will discover why working on only one scale (macro or micro) limits your impact, and how thinking in both simultaneously can radically change your results.
#
#
Powers of Ten: the lesson we forgot
That dawn I remembered a 1977 film that changed how we see the world: "Powers of Ten" by Charles and Ray Eames.
The camera is 1 meter away.
Every 10 seconds, it zooms out 10 times further (10 meters, 100 meters, 1 kilometer…).
The park. The city. Illinois. United States. The Earth. The solar system. The galaxy. The observable universe.
We reached 10²⁴ meters. The edge of everything known.
Then it returns. To the picnic. And continues inward.
To the man's hand. To the skin. To the cells. To the molecules. To the atoms. To the quarks.
Down to 10^-16 meters. The minimum expression of matter.
💡 Same point. 40 different orders of magnitude of seeing it. Each scale reveals a completely new reality.
#
#
Alexa: when designing at the universe scale
For two years I designed at the macro extreme.
A user in Boston says: "Alexa, good morning"
The system orchestrates:
* Reads personalized news
* Adjusts home lights
* Shows calendar on screen
* Synchronizes reminders on mobile
* Starts Spotify playlist
One phrase. Five experiences. Three devices. All coherent.
It was design at ecosystem scale. Thinking about how complex systems work together. The view from 10^24 meters.
But that night, after Laura's question, I realized something unsettling:
What happens when you go down 40 orders of magnitude? What is the minimum unit of a design system? The minimum expression that can encode meaning?
#
#
The experiment: wedding invitations from the emotional atom
I decided to apply "Powers of Ten" to the most empathetic case I could think of: digital wedding invitations.
The traditional scale (view from 10 meters):
I had 73 templates in Figma:
* "Romantic" Template #1
* "Modern" Template #2
* "Classic" Template #3
The process was the usual: couple chooses template, I change colors, adjust names and date, send. Rinse and repeat.
It's the "human" scale of design. Where we all normally operate.
#
#
#
But what if I go down to atomic scale?
Instead of showing templates, I asked Laura (yes, my student) and her partner:
"How do you want your guests to feel when they receive the invitation?"
Laura and her partner: "Intimate, warm, familiar"
I didn't look for "Romantic Template #3".
I went down to the minimum expression. To the emotional tokens of the invitation:
$invitation-intimacy: (
. spacing: generous, // breathes, doesn't overwhelm
. palette: warm-earth, // terracotta, cream, sage
. typography: gentle, // soft serif, not imposing
. decoration: minimal. // discreet flowers, not pompous
);
It's like in the Eames film: when you go down to molecular scale, you discover that what seemed solid (a wedding template) is actually made of atoms (minimal emotional decisions).
#
#
The two scales in action: Alexa vs wedding invitations
#
#
#
Macro Scale (my project at Alexa — 2 years):
User: Alexa, I want a romantic atmosphere"
System orchestrates multiple devices:
* Lights → warm amber, 30% intensity
* Music → smooth jazz, low volume
* Screen → fireplace animation
* Temperature → goes up 2 degrees
One instruction. Four systems. All synchronized.
View from the universe: how complex experiences work together.
#
#
#
Micro Scale (wedding invitations — the new approach):
But what makes "warm amber" feel romantic and not "bright white"?
There's the atom. The same principle applied to a wedding invitation:
// Alexa's "romantic atom"
$romantic-light: (
. hue: 30, // warm orange
. saturation: 85, // rich but not saturated
. brightness: 30. // intimate, not bright
);
// The same "romantic atom" in an invitation
$invitation-warmth: (
. color-primary: hsl(30, 85%, 30%), // same hue
. color-accent: hsl(30, 75%, 85%), // soft version
. color-background: hsl(30, 25%, 95%) // almost warm white
);
⚠️ The insight: For Alexa to work at universe scale, someone had to design first at atom scale. Same with wedding invitations.
#
#
When the atom defines the universe: real case
Ana and Marcos respond differently: "Vibrant, international, celebration"
Micro Scale (the tokens of their invitation):
$invitation-celebration: (
. spacing: dynamic, // overlapping elements
. palette: festive-bold, // electric blue + gold
. typography: geometric, // architectural sans-serif
. decoration: maximal. // festive ornamentation
);
Macro Scale (their entire digital wedding experience):
From those atoms, the system automatically generates:
* Save the date (first contact)
Uses tokens: dynamic spacing, festive palette
Mood: "something big is coming"
* Main invitation (core experience)
Same tokens, more complex hierarchy
Mood: "international celebration"
* RSVP card (interaction)
Tokens applied to form
Mood: "respond with energy"
* Thank you notes (farewell)
Softer but recognizable tokens
Mood: "thanks for celebrating with us"
All coherent. Because emotional atoms are consistent.
It's exactly like "Powers of Ten":
From 10^-16 (the
$festive-bold: hsl(210, 100%, 50%) token) to 10^24 (the entire digital wedding experience) there are 40 scales in between.💡 If the atom doesn't encode emotion correctly, the entire wedding experience feels generic.
#
#
The numbers that validated the two scales
Six months testing this approach with digital wedding invitations:
📊 Client satisfaction: 78% → 94%
⏱️ Iterations to approval: 5–7 → 2–3.
💰 Conversion rate: 23% → 41%
📈 Referrals: 12% → 38%
#
#
The revealing part:
Couples stopped asking "change this color for that" (macro thinking, template level) and started saying "it feels exactly like us" (coherence from micro, atom level).
Because when you design invitations from the minimal emotional expression upward, each piece inherits the couple's personality.
#
#
What Laura really asked me
Laura wasn't questioning design systems theory.
She was pointing to something deeper: we all think of design systems on only one scale.
I had spent two years at the macro extreme with Alexa:
* Multimodal experiences orchestrating devices
* Synchronized cross-platform systems
* Complex ecosystems of experiences
But I had ignored the opposite extreme in wedding invitations:
* What is the emotional atom of an invitation?
* What is the minimum expression that defines "romantic"?
* How is "family intimacy" encoded in a single token?
As in the Eames film: if you only see invitations from "full template", you never discover the emotional atoms that build them.
🎯 The future of design is not choosing macro or micro. It is thinking in both scales simultaneously.
#
#
The connection between Alexa and a wedding invitation
This is how it works in both cases:
Micro Scale (10^-16): A color token
// In Alexa
$ambient-romantic: hsl(30, 85%, 30%);
// In wedding invitation
$invitation-warmth: hsl(30, 85%, 30%);
Molecular Scale (10^-8): A component
// In Alexa
// In invitation
Cellular Scale (10^0): A complete scene
// In Alexa
// In invitation
Ecosystem Scale (10^8): A complete experience
// In Alexa (multi-device)
// In wedding (multi-format)
Each scale builds on the previous one. But without the right atoms at 10^-16, the entire universe at 10^24 feels generic.
Whether it's Alexa orchestrating your home or a wedding invitation arriving on your WhatsApp.
#
#
What's coming: the bidirectional designer
I'm developing a methodology that operates in both directions:
When you go up (macro):
* From wedding tokens → save the date → invitation → complete experience
* Like building a celebration from its emotional atoms
When you go down (micro):
* From "I want an intimate wedding" → what palette? → what tokens define intimacy?
* Like understanding why an invitation feels a certain way
The power: Emotional coherence from the quark to the universe.
Whether in Alexa multimodal or in digital wedding invitations.
#
#
Your turn:
On what scale do you normally design?
Have you thought about macro experiences (like Alexa, ecosystems)?
Have you gone down to micro scale (tokens that feel) in your projects?
What would you discover if you changed your scale 10x up or 10x down?
Exercise for today:
Take your last project. Identify what scale you worked on (full templates or basic tokens?). Now imagine: what would you discover if you went down/up 10 scales? Share your answer in comments.
#DesignSystems #PowersOfTen #SystemsThinking #EmotionalDesign #WeddingDesign #DesignScale