Design Principles
A curated collection of design principles from major design systems, articles, and resources for reference and inspiration.
What is Design Principles?
Awesome Design Principles is a curated GitHub repository that collects design principles from major design systems, articles, and other resources. It helps designers and developers find inspiration and guidance for creating consistent, user-centered designs by providing access to established principles from companies like Apple, Google, and Shopify.
UX/UI designers, product designers, design system maintainers, and developers involved in creating or maintaining design guidelines who need reference material and inspiration.
It saves time by centralizing high-quality design principles from across the industry in one place, eliminating the need to search multiple sources, and it's community-driven to stay updated with new resources.
Overview
✨ A curated list of awesome design principles
Use Cases
Best For
- Finding inspiration for writing your own design principles
- Referencing established design principles from companies like Apple or Google
- Learning how design principles are applied in real-world design systems
- Educating teams about the importance of design consistency
- Building or expanding a company's design system documentation
- Studying best practices in UX and product design
Not Ideal For
- Teams needing ready-to-use UI components or code libraries for immediate implementation
- Projects requiring interactive design tools or prototyping software
- Organizations seeking confidential, proprietary design principles not based on public examples
- Individuals looking for structured, step-by-step courses on design theory or hands-on tutorials
Pros & Cons
Pros
Aggregates principles from top companies like Apple, Google, and Shopify, ensuring reliable and industry-tested sources for inspiration.
Includes expert articles and guides on developing principles, offering practical insights beyond mere lists, as seen in the 'Articles about Design Principles' section.
Encourages pull requests for new resources, keeping the collection fresh and expanding with community contributions, per the README's contribution guidelines.
Saves time by compiling scattered design principles into one location, eliminating the need to search multiple websites or systems independently.
Cons
Lacks interactive features, tools, or implementation examples, making it purely a list without practical application support for real-time design work.
Relies on community contributions; without active upkeep, links or resources may become outdated or broken, as noted in the reliance on pull requests.
Offers no search, categorization, or customization options, making it difficult to find principles tailored to specific industries or design challenges.
Frequently Asked Questions
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