Fifteen years of design systems, mostly where they're hardest to keep alive.

I'm John Harrison. I run whatwhatdesign ltd, a one-person studio for design-system work in finance and other regulated industries. Leighton Buzzard-based, working remote or hybrid for London clients.

What I do

I audit, simplify and hand over design systems. Fifteen years in, mostly in regulated industries where the system has to outlive whoever built it. Tokens, component architecture, Figma-to-code pipelines, documentation, and the handover discipline that makes the rest stick.

Working with you

Embedded in your team or leading a contained engagement, contract or in-house, the same senior practitioner either way. I work in the open, partner with one or two of your designers and engineers as power users, and aim to leave your team more capable than I found it.

Working with AI

Lately a lot of the work is making systems that both people and AI assistants can read. On UBS that meant restructuring the guidance into three layers, tokens, components and patterns, with a clear split between the facts a tool can generate and the rules a person has to write. Engineers and AI assistants then work from one shared contract instead of copying values that go stale. The AI speeds up delivery. The design direction and the quality bar stay with me.

Career

The full timeline lives on my CV: roles, dates and the throughline.

Modes and rate

• Contracts from September 2026, via whatwhatdesign ltd.
• From £100/hr. In-house salary discussed on enquiry.
• Remote, or hybrid in London.
• WCAG 2.2 AA is the default on everything I ship, including this site.

LinkedIn · CV