I help product teams stop fighting their design system.
Audit, tokens, governance. No smoke.

146 components reduced to 10 atomic generators across 40 markets. Financial services. E-commerce. Voice-first. If your system has grown out of control, I can help you simplify it.

Book a Discovery Call See services

Previously

Amazon Western Union Telefónica Movistar+
40 markets unified
146 10 components
6 mo faster integration
100% DS adoption at Amazon
Beyond screens, beyond components

Design systems that only serve screens have an expiry date.

Voice. Touch. Headless. Agentic. Three years at Amazon taught me what happens when a design system has to work without a screen. AI is making that world the default.

The future of design systems isn’t more components. It’s fewer rules that produce more outcomes.

See how it works without screens

How digital teams should work

Pairs are the new standard.

A designer and a developer, from ideation to production. No silos. No handoffs. An AI agent as the third member. This is how I build.

Framework: Duplas

One leader, two disciplines.

With AI as copilot, one director leads front-end and design without compromising quality. I do it every day.

Framework: Dual Leadership

Agentic teams: empathetic, fast, passionate.

The modern digital team doesn't need rigid hierarchies. It needs empathy, passion, and people who want to build. Pairs that complement each other and deliver.

Framework: Agentic Team
The ladder

Start where you are. Climb when you need to.

Each step builds on the one before. No lock-in, no pressure.

  1. 01
    Start

    Blueprint Session

    €89 · 90 min
  2. 02
    Foundation

    DS Audit

    €2.5K–€5K · 2–3 weeks
  3. 03
    Growth

    Token Pipeline

    €4K–€8K · 3–4 weeks
  4. 04
    Flagship

    Consolidation Sprint

    €8K–€15K · 6–8 weeks
  5. 05
    Retainer

    Fractional Architect

    €3K–€5K/mo · Ongoing

Each service delivers value on its own. You don’t need anything else.

How I can help your team

Two engagement models. Both designed to give you architecture that scales, and then get out of your way.

DS Architecture Blueprint Session

90 minutes with me to answer the hardest architecture question on your plate.

90 minutes €89

A recorded working session — you bring the problem, I bring the framework. You leave with a 15-page PDF of recommendations and a prioritized next step you can execute the same week.

  • 90-minute live working session (Zoom)
  • Recording + 15-page PDF of recommendations
  • Prioritized 3-step plan for the next 30 days
  • 7-day async follow-up via email
  • 100% credited toward a full Audit if you upgrade within 30 days

The cheapest way to work with me. Most people who do a Blueprint Session book a full engagement within 60 days.

Book a Blueprint Session

DS Audit & Architecture Blueprint

Find out exactly what's wrong — and what to build.

2–3 weeks €2.500 – €5.000

I audit your current design system (or lack of one), map every inconsistency, and deliver a complete architecture document with a prioritized roadmap your team can execute.

  • Full component and token inventory
  • Inconsistency and duplication map
  • Proposed token architecture (W3C DTCG)
  • Governance model recommendation
  • Prioritized roadmap (50–80 page document)

This is the same process I used to reduce Western Union's 146 components to 10 atomic generators across 40 markets.

Book an Audit Call

Token Architecture & Pipeline

The invisible layer that makes everything consistent.

3–4 weeks €4.000 – €8.000

I design and implement your semantic token architecture using the W3C Design Token Community Group standard — the only specification that makes your tokens readable by both humans and AI agents.

  • Semantic token taxonomy (W3C DTCG)
  • Style Dictionary pipeline, configured and deployed
  • Multi-brand / multi-theme setup
  • Figma Variables integration
  • Documentation for designers AND engineers

Very few consultants can both design the token architecture AND implement the pipeline. I do both.

Book a Token Architecture Call
Most popular

DS Consolidation Sprint

From chaos to system in 8 weeks.

6–8 weeks €8.000 – €15.000

For companies with multiple products, brands, or platforms that need to converge into a single, scalable design system. This is the full engagement — audit to handoff.

  • Everything in the Audit + Token packages
  • Core component library (design + code)
  • Governance framework (federated model)
  • Team onboarding and documentation
  • Clean handoff to your internal team

This is what I do daily at Western Union. 40 markets. One system. Zero compromises.

Book a Sprint Call

Fractional DS Architect

Senior leadership without the full-time commitment.

2–3 days/week, ongoing €3.000 – €5.000/month

I embed with your team 2–3 days per week as your design system architect. Strategic direction, code reviews, team mentorship, governance evolution, and continuous system improvement.

  • Strategic DS direction and roadmap
  • Architecture decisions and code reviews
  • Team mentorship (designers + engineers)
  • Governance and adoption strategy
  • Ongoing system evolution

Ideal for Series B+ startups that need DS leadership but aren't ready to hire a full-time architect.

Book a Retainer Call

Selected work

Outcomes. Scale. Architecture decisions.

Western Union 2023–present

Radical Rationalization at Western Union

146 to 10 components. One system. 40 markets. Consistent experience across brands, platforms, and regions.

Global financial services company with ~40 markets running disconnected web, app, and retail POS properties. Design system had grown organically to 146 disconnected components. Every release required manual reconciliation across regions.

40 Markets unified
146→10 Components consolidated
1 Source of truth
Read the case study
Amazon 2020–2023

Multimodal Agentic Commerce — Amazon Alexa / Rufus

A design system that works where there are no screens. The foundation for agentic commerce.

Amazon's voice-first ecosystem. Alexa needed a design system that worked with AND without screens. Rufus (Amazon's AI shopping assistant) needed high-fidelity prototypes. Design systems assume screens. Voice doesn't have screens. How do you build a system that serves both?

100% Adoption
6 months Faster global integration
1st Voice-first DS in the world
Read the case study
Amazon Business 2021–2022

Code-First Prototyping at Global Scale — Amazon Business Telescope

45% reduction in prototyping iteration time. Adopted across 4 global hubs.

Amazon Business needed faster prototyping across 4 global engineering hubs. Traditional design-to-dev handoff was too slow.

4 Global hubs
45% Faster iteration
Code-first New design workflow
Read the case study
BODADOS 2024–present Side Project

Bodados — Wedding coordination SaaS platform

Early access now live at bodados.com. In production with real customers. AI content pipeline generating articles and social posts autonomously.

The Spanish wedding market moves ~4B EUR/year. Couples organize weddings with a WhatsApp group, three spreadsheets and phone notes. Existing portals are vendor directories with contact forms. None solve the real operational problem.

Live In production
9 Invitation templates
40+ Tables in Neon
Read the case study
I don’t just build design systems for humans.

I teach machines to understand design decisions.

The AI-Readiness framework turns your design system into a substrate an AI agent can actually reason about.

01

Semantic tokens (W3C DTCG)

Machine-readable tokens with semantic meaning, not just color variables. The only layer both humans and agents can parse.

02

Project rules

Explicit constraints that teach an agent what “good design” means in your system. Governance as code.

03

MCP connections

Your design system exposed as a tool-protocol endpoint. Agents pull tokens, components, and guidance in real time.

04

Autonomy ladder

A tiered model of what the agent can decide alone vs. what needs a human review. Trust by default, not by luck.

Read the chapter
The evolution of design systems

Three stages. One trajectory.

Design systems started as component libraries. They are becoming reasoning partners. This is the arc.

  1. 01
    Where the industry is

    Traditional

    Tokens, components, documentation. Humans design, humans build, humans maintain. The system is a static artifact that teams consume.

  2. 02
    Where the practice is

    Agentic

    AI as an active team member. Semantic tokens give vocabulary. Project rules teach judgment. MCP gives access. The autonomy ladder defines trust. Humans define, agents build.

    My current practice
  3. 03
    Where this leads

    Generative through dialogue

    The system no longer waits for predefined flows. It encounters new contexts, initiates structured conversation, synthesizes proposals, validates them, and codifies the results back into itself. Dialogue is the learning mechanism.

My book predicted your problem

What’s your design system problem?

Pick one. I’ll show you which chapter of the book covers it, then you can book a discovery call to talk about your specific case.

Let's talk about your design system.

Whether you need an audit, a full consolidation, or ongoing architectural leadership, I'd love to hear what you're building.

Book a Discovery Call

30 min, free

Email

me@joanarbo.com

LinkedIn

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