Expanding the Reach of Design Tokens: How to Use Them in Non-UI Design

Design Tokens: The Secret to Consistency Beyond the User Interface

An organization can use design tokens to ensure consistency and coherence across all of its design decisions, not just those related to the user interface (UI). As we’ll see in this post, design tokens can be used to make a wide variety of design elements, including PowerPoint presentations, flyers, ads, and even a company’s printer and other printed materials, more consistent and high quality. But let’s discuss some basics for the people who are new to the concept of design tokens.

What are design tokens?

A design token is a variable that represents a core design element in a system, such as color, typography, spacing, and other interactive and visual properties. Designers and developers can easily access and use these elements as tokens throughout the design process, ensuring that each design decision is consistent with the overall design scheme.

Why use design tokens?

• Using design tokens has several benefits. First and foremost, it ensures consistency in the design of a product or brand. All elements of the product or brand can have a cohesive and harmonious look and feel by using the same set of design tokens throughout the design process.
• As well as improving consistency, design tokens can increase the efficiency of the design process. Defining design elements as tokens allows designers to easily access and use them, eliminating the need to create common elements from scratch. For larger design projects, this can save a great deal of time and effort.
• Finally, design tokens can enhance the maintainability of a design system. By using tokens to represent core design elements, designers can easily update the system to reflect changes in branding or design direction. To stay on top of changing trends or market needs, this can be particularly useful for companies.

Tokens beyond UI design

Design tokens are frequently used in UI design, but they can also be used in PowerPoint presentations, flyers, ads, PDFs, and even physical materials like company printers.

In a PowerPoint presentation, for example, design tokens can be used to define colors, typography, and other visual elements. Regardless of who is creating the company’s presentations, the company can maintain a consistent and professional appearance. A design token can be used to create a cohesive and unified brand image on flyers, ads, and other promotional materials.

Even physical materials like company printers, business cards, and other branded items can be designed consistently with design tokens. By defining the colors, typography, and other design elements as tokens, a company can ensure that all of its physical materials have a consistent and professional appearance, regardless of where or when they are produced.

For a company to use design tokens in their PowerPoint presentations, here are some steps that they can follow:

1. You must define your design tokens in advance. To start with, you need to define the core design elements that you wish to include as tokens. For example, you might want to include colors, typography, spacing, and other visual elements as tokens.
2. Once you’ve defined your design tokens, you need to create a library to store them. This can be a simple spreadsheet or a more complex tool like a design system platform like Figma. But I’d recommend making your design tokens available on a platform that is more accessible to non-designers as well.
3. Make sure that you utilize design tokens in your PowerPoint templates when you create PowerPoint templates for your company to ensure consistency and coherence. For example, if you have defined a particular color as a design token, then be sure that that color is used throughout the template consistently.
4. The design token library should be updated as needed as you work on PowerPoint templates. If you change the direction of the design while working on PowerPoint templates, you may have to update the design token library. To ensure that all design decisions are consistent with the overall design system, it is imperative to keep the library up to date as much as possible.
5. Whenever employees are creating presentations, encourage them to use the company’s PowerPoint templates to ensure that all presentations have a consistent look. As a result, all presentations will follow the design system defined by the design tokens, to ensure consistency.

The above steps will assist a company in using design tokens to define the colors, typography, and other visual elements of their PowerPoint presentations, helping to create a cohesive and unified brand image for the company.

Other creative ways to use tokens

1. Design templates: It is possible to create templates for different types of design work, such as social media posts, email newsletters, and presentation slides, with the help of design tokens, which can help you ensure that all your templates are consistent and professional.
2. Design marketing materials: Design tokens can also be used to design marketing materials such as flyers, brochures, and ads. This is because they can help create a cohesive and unified brand image across all of your marketing efforts and help to build brand recognition.
3. Design physical materials: It is also possible to use design tokens to develop physical materials, such as business cards, packaging, branded merchandise, and stationery, so that their appearance is consistent and professional. By using design tokens, you will ensure that all your physical materials are well-designed and look consistent.

Tokens are a powerful tool for ensuring consistency and coherence in user interface design. As long as designers define the core design elements as tokens, and use them consistently during the entire design process, they can create a UI that reflects the unique identity of their brand cohesively and harmoniously. The process of integrating design tokens into user interfaces involves a bit of planning and organization on the part of product designers, but the benefits of improving consistency, efficiency, and maintainability outweigh the effort.

That’s the end of this short yet hopefully insightful read. Thanks for making it to the end. I hope you gained something from it.

👨🏻‍💻 Join my content verse or slide into my DMs on LinkedIn, Twitter, Figma, Dribbble, and Substack. 💭 Comment your thoughts and feedback, or start a conversation!