Archive | Matteo Pescarin's Blog

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Posted on Tue, 28 Nov 2017

Installing and configuring PatternLab

In this second instalment of articles about PatternLab, I am going to cover some basics around installation and configuration that can hopefully clear out some confusion that some people have expressed to me recently. …
12 minutes read
Posted on Mon, 27 Nov 2017

Do you need a Design System?

Creating a Design System is difficult. The initial question “Do you need a design system?” has no immediate answer, there is no “20 seconds elevated pitch” to sell a design system. Let me explain why. …
- Web Design
- Design Systems
4 minutes read
Posted on Thu, 20 Jul 2017

Introduction to PatternLab, a pattern-driven UI tool

I do consider PatternLab a mature tool, but its complexity might be overwhelming to many, both developers and designers, and if you have not investigated the topic of pattern libraries enough, it can cause more problems than those it solves. This article is going to be the first of a series on PatternLab [PL], starting from the very basics and digging into much more detailed aspects of it. …
4 minutes read
Posted on Wed, 28 Jun 2017

Taking PatternLab modularity to the next level

This article is going to be the first of a series on PatternLab [PL], starting from the very basics and digging into much more detailed aspects of it, such as: What does PL do? How to use and configure PL. …
15 minutes read
Posted on Sun, 2 Apr 2017

Hurdles and joys of building a style guide

In my previous article, “CSS architectures for UI developers” I've tried to express how complicated is the situation surrounding the ideation, creation, and management of design systems for the web. I worked with Atomic Design and the PatternLab tool on at least 3 major projects, most notably during my period at Sainsbury’s in introducing and creating from scratch the style guide for the now defunct Sainsbury’s Entertainment on Demand, helped the Groceries Online team in getting their own style guide sorted, and supervised as a technical advisor the initial creation of the global Sainsbury’s style guide, project Luna. In this article, I’d like to highlight some of the problems we solved in using a pattern library, and more importantly, some of the problems I’ve encountered in the first of these projects, by creating a pattern library for a legacy project. …
10 minutes read