CASESTUDY — DESIGN SYSTEMS

One architecture.
Two products. Two themes.

One architecture.
Two products. Two themes.

Novacore's token system scales from a single palette to Crédito +
Débito — in light and dark — without touching a single component.

Credit

Debit

𒊹 Light

⏾ Dark

ROLE

Product Designer

SYSTEM

Novacore Design System

TOOLS

Figma Variables · W3C DTCG

SCOPE

Tokens · Components · Multi-brand theming

01 — THE PROBLEM

One product,
one hardcoded palette

As the company expanded into new products, every squad started building its own components. Colors were fixed values, not roles — so adding a second brand meant editing screens by hand, one at a time, with no shared source of truth.

Static color palette

Duplicated components

Duplicated components

Visual inconsistency

Visual inconsistency

Slower implementation

Slower implementation

No shared source of truth

No shared source of truth

02 — THE DECISION

From flat palette to
a four-mode token system

From flat palette to a four-mode token system

Same token name — action/primary, text/primary — resolves to a different value depending on which product and theme are active. Components never know the difference.

Credit primitive

Emerald + Pine ramps

Debit primitive

Sky + Slat ramps

Semantic tokens

credit / debit · light / dark

Components — zero rewrites

03 — PROVING IT SCALES

Same components,
four modes

Credit

Debit

𒊹 Light

⏾ Dark

04 — INSIDE THE SYSTEM

Nine primitives,
one shared vocabulary

Esmerald

Pine

Sky

Slat

Silent

Success

Warning

Error

Info

Info

TYPOGRAPHY - HIERARCHY BY SIZE, NOT WEIGHT

HEADING

Available credit

BODY

Available credit

NUMERIC

$18,200.34

UI LABEL

PAY

SPACING — 8PT SCALE, 4PT MICRO-ADJUST

4

8

16

24

32

48

64

✦ 05 — BUILT TO BE MAINTAINED

Documented and validated before
a single component shipped

NAMING CONVENTION

action / primary / default

text / secondary

border / focus

Category · role · state — every token reads like a sentence. Anyone can guess what it does without opening Figma.

CONTRAST, VALIDATED UPFRONT

AAA

AAA

AAA

Every primitive stop carries its WCAG contrast ratio against white and black — checked before a component existed, not after.

SINGLE SOURCE OF TRUTH

Tokens are authored in Figma Variables, published to Supernova in W3C DTCG format, and consumed by both design and engineering from one place — no exported style guide to fall out of date.

© 2026 Daniel Manjarrez — Product Designer 🇲🇽

© 2026 Daniel Manjarrez — Product Designer 🇲🇽

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