We don't just design.We ship systems.

Think of it in Lego terms. A UI kit is the bag of Lego pieces — the individual buttons, icons, input fields. A pattern library is the small pre-built assemblies — a dropdown, a modal, a checkout flow. A style guide is the printed rulebook showing colors, fonts, logo usage. A design system is the whole Lego set — UI kit + pattern library + style guide + documentation + governance + code + rollout playbook, all versioned and operational. This is why real component library design work involves engineering, not just Figma: every component ships with production code, accessibility baked in, and a contribution path. Agencies selling 'design systems' who only deliver Figma component files are selling a UI kit. We deliver the full set.

Nine table-stakes design system services: (1) foundational elements — typography, color, spacing, motion; (2) style guides; (3) component libraries managed in Figma; (4) pattern libraries covering hover states, modals, onboarding flows; (5) documentation hubs with code snippets and accessibility standards; (6) code frameworks — React, Vue, or CSS libraries; (7) design-development alignment through Storybook and DevMode; (8) governance models — contribution rules, review workflows; (9) brand guideline extensions. A good agency also ships a pilot project that uses the system before leaving. Without the pilot, adoption stalls — in our experience, handoff-only systems hit roughly 20% adoption at 90 days, while pilot-included systems hit 80%+.

Two monthly retainer tiers, month-to-month, with unused-hours roll-over:

• Scale — $5,000/month (intro pricing; $7,500 regular). Two concurrent workstreams, 25 partner hours or 70 team hours. Good for a focused system build — tokens + core components, or an audit-plus-rebuild.
• Multi-workstream — $10,000/month (intro pricing; $12,500 regular). Four concurrent workstreams, 55 partner hours or 150 team hours. Good for full-system delivery — tokens + components + Storybook + governance + pilot project in parallel.

Compare: Donux starts at €50K/quarter (~$54K). DOOR3 runs project bands $50K–$500K. Enterprise agencies (DEPT, R/GA) are six-figure minimums. Waveup is the only sub-$10K/month retainer in the SERP. Full breakdown at /pricing/.

Yes — if you have existing product UI. An audit inventories every button variant, modal, color, typography token, spacing quirk, and icon you've shipped. It surfaces the scope of design debt so the rebuild is informed, not guessed. Skipping the audit produces a theoretical system that doesn't match the product's real shape. For greenfield startups pre-product-launch, the audit collapses into the initial design phase. Our audits typically take 3-5 days and produce a prioritized component backlog you can build against whether or not you continue with us.

Foundations: Figma with Variables for design tokens. Tokens Studio or Style Dictionary for token export to code. Code: React components delivered via npm or monorepo; Vue or web-components if your stack requires. Documentation: Storybook with Chromatic for visual regression testing — this is what a modern Storybook design system looks like in practice, not a static MDX site that rots. Accessibility: WCAG 2.2 AA compliance baseline, axe-core in CI, keyboard and screen-reader QA. Semantic versioning from day one. Governance: Git-based contribution model, PR review workflow, and a Figma Library access tier. As a Figma design system agency we adapt to your engineering team's preferences — we don't force React if you run Vue, and we don't force Storybook if your team ships MDX docs.

Most design systems fail at governance. Ours don't, because we ship governance mechanics before we leave: a contribution model documenting how new components get added, semantic versioning policy, a PR review workflow with named owners, quarterly adoption audits tracking % of product screens on the system, and a design system OKR set (usually: 80% of screens on tokens within 2 quarters, 60% of components reused ≥3 times). The biggest driver of adoption isn't documentation — it's that we sit inside your product team for the rollout and ship at least one real user-facing feature using the system. That feature becomes the proof-of-life.

Full system in 2-4 weeks for funded startups with clear product scope. Compare: LuxeFactor's complete system (tokens, components, documentation, Figma library, code library, pilot screens) shipped in 4 weeks end-to-end. Hesytech's production-ready component system shipped in 3 weeks alongside the full site that raised the $8M seed. N² Labs got a system-driven full stack (brand + design system + site + funnel) in 2 weeks — the system is what made 2 weeks possible. Compare to Donux's 3-6 month floor, Superside's 8-16 week foundational estimate, or DEPT-tier enterprise cycles of 4-6 months. Speed is the system, not a feature.

Both paths. Build-from-scratch when your brand is distinctive, your engineering team wants full control, and your product stage justifies the investment (Series A+). Extend-an-existing-library (MUI / Chakra / Radix / Mantine) when speed matters more than pixel-perfect brand control — we theme the library, override typography and color tokens, add brand-specific components on top, and ship the system in half the time. For a typical SaaS design system at seed to Series A, a themed library is usually the right call — it gets you to Stage 3 maturity (tokens + components + code + docs) in 2-3 weeks. Most funded startups graduate to fully custom by Series B. We'll recommend the right path after the audit.

Investors care about two things at design system level: (1) does your product UI feel cohesive and credible at first impression? — a consistent system says 'this team has operational discipline;' and (2) is your engineering team shipping sustainably? — a design system with governance tells due-diligence advisors you're not stacking tech debt every sprint. A messy, inconsistent product UI is a diligence red flag. Because we run the fundraising arm, we've sat in dozens of investor product demos and watched exactly which cues VCs flag. Our design systems ship diligence-ready — Hesytech closed $8M on the system we built in 3 weeks.

Yes. All components ship with keyboard navigation, screen-reader support, visible focus indicators, 4.5:1 contrast ratios for text, ARIA attributes where applicable, and axe-core automated testing in CI. We run a manual accessibility audit against W3C WAI and WebAIM guidelines before handoff. Accessibility isn't a nice-to-have — it's a legal requirement in many jurisdictions (ADA.gov in the US) and a non-negotiable component of a system that serves real users.