A token foundation from scratch
Atlas Freight, a logistics SaaS, had four screens of product and zero system. Every new feature was a fresh coat of inconsistent paint.
- Client
- Atlas Freight, logistics SaaS
- Scope
- Foundation: tokens, 24 components, docs
- Timeline
- Documented v1 in 14 days
The problem
No tokens, no shared components, three shades of almost-the-same blue. Every estimate carried a hidden design-debt tax, and dark mode or a rebrand would have meant a rewrite.
Atlas did not need a design system project. It needed the system to appear underneath the work it was already paying for.
Three moves
Mine the product for its real decisions
Wraith audited the shipped screens and clustered 130+ observed values into 78 candidate tokens. The three blues became one, with the diff documented.
Stand up components inside real requests
The first briefs, a settings page and a shipment table, were built as system components. Foundation and feature shipped together; nothing was speculative.
Document so the next hire can drive
Every token and component landed with usage notes and do/don't lines. The deliverable reads like a mini reference site, because it is one.
Before and after
What shipped
- 78
- tokens in the v1 foundation
- 24
- components, documented
- 14
- days to a usable, documented v1
- 1
- source of truth going forward
Nnamdi E.
Senior Designer, Wraith
The hardest cut was naming. Tokens outlive screens, so the review spent more time on words than on color.
Illustrative case, composed for planning purposes. Names and numbers are placeholders.
Your product could be case 05.
First draft in 48 hours, a named designer signs everything, pause anytime.