01 · Citi · firm-wide design systems · 2025 to now
A design system built for machines to read
Background
Citi ran eight design systems, one per business line. Each worked for its own customers, but over the years they drifted apart and away from the brand, and maintaining eight of anything is expensive. Consolidation on its own is a cost story though, and cost stories lose to whatever's on fire this quarter. So I argued something else: the next thing reading a design system is a machine, and it can't know how each business should look unless someone writes it down.
What I did
Co-authored the strategy and made the case to leadership. The head of design backed it and it became a funded platform, twelve people taking eight systems down to four. I don't run that team. Other leaders took the build, which is right for something needing more day-to-day authority than my role carries.
What I'd do differently
I led with consolidation for months before I led with the AI argument. The AI framing is what moved it, and I'd had it the whole time.
8 down to 4
design systems
12
people on the platform team
1
rule set written for machines, not just people
02 · Citi · an internal research and advisory platform · shipped
A generator that removed the design queue
Background
The platform published constantly and every article, event and video needed an on-brand image. Every one routed through a designer first, so a five-minute asset became a two-day wait. More reviewers don't fix a review bottleneck. Put the brand rules inside the tool and there's nothing left to review.
What I built
A generator stocked with approved imagery, color and type. Type a headline, pick a few images, download something that holds the brand. Closer to a meme generator than a design tool, which is the point: nobody needs training.
What I'd do differently
I shipped it without instrumenting it. I know roughly what it saved because people told me, not because I measured it, and the case for the next tool would have written itself.
~5 hrs
of design time back every week
0
minutes waiting in a queue
1
standard, held by the tool
03 · Open source · github.com/ericseandevlin/taste-engine · 2026
Taste Engine
Background
AI will generate a hundred designs and can't tell you which one is right. "Make it good" isn't a spec, and neither is "make it feel premium." But a moodboard is a point of view you can measure. Not a mood: color, spacing, density, what repeats, and what never appears.
What I built
A pipeline that catalogs every reference, measures it, and writes out a thesis the generator has to obey. Seventy-six references became eight channels. MIT licensed and public. This site was built from its output, which is the only proof that counts.
What I'd do differently
Two versions failed first. Both tried to score design quality, and the score was always defensible and never right. What worked was measuring specific instead of good, and letting my eye do the judging.
76
references distilled into 8 channels
MIT
open source, public method
1:1
this site is built from its output
04 · Personal infrastructure, running daily · 2026
An agency that runs itself
Background
I had about five hours a week for everything outside my job, and every system I built to save time needed me to run it. The shape of the failure was always the same. One assistant doing everything has one trust setting, and if you give it enough access to be useful you can't let it act alone.
What I built
Small single-purpose agents, each with its own tools and memory, and a supervisor that checks their work instead of redoing it. A new one starts read-only and earns the right to act. Seven run daily. One of them builds this website.
What I'd do differently
I built the workers first and the thing that watches them last. Two of them had been dead for a month before I added the supervisor, which spotted it on its first run.
1 digest
replaced the dashboards
I am a product person who came to code through design: eleven years of accessories at Coach and Calvin Klein before a line of production code, then engineering leadership, now AI-native tooling and design systems.
ericdevlin@me.com