Curriculum vitae

John Harrison

Design Systems Lead

Summary

Design systems lead with 15+ years across financial services and consumer products, specialising in the audit, simplification and handover of inherited enterprise systems so they outlast the teams that build them. Deep on design tokens, Figma library architecture and Figma-to-code pipelines, with WCAG 2.2 AA accessibility as a constant throughline. Equally strong in technical craft and in the workshops, documentation and stakeholder alignment that drive adoption. Increasingly this means building systems that read cleanly for both people and AI assistants, with one shared contract in place of duplicated, volatile values.

Experience

Operating as an independent design-systems lead through whatwhatdesign ltd since 2019. Selected engagements:

Sep 2025 – now London / Remote

UBS (via ELSE)

Lead Interaction Designer

  • Leading template definition for a UBS dashboard product, scoping four responsive templates (dashboard, stacks, multi-column, horizontal-scroll) covering the full range of page types.
  • Authoring the template specification (page regions, spacing scale, responsive breakpoints, panel/overlay behaviour, design tokens) as the single reference shared by design and engineering.
  • Building accessibility into the spec from the outset: heading hierarchy, focus management, keyboard rules for panels and menus, and target sizing.
  • Working with GitHub Copilot as a design partner, restructured the system’s guidance into a three-layer model (tokens, components, patterns) with a clear split between generated facts and hand-written rules, so engineers and AI assistants work from one shared contract rather than copying values that go stale. Design direction and the quality bar stay with me; Copilot speeds up delivery.
May 2025 – Sep 2025 London (Hybrid)

Lantern

Design System Specialist

  • Led the evolution of Lantern's design system from Lux 3.0 to 4.0: audit, token architecture, component refinement, documentation and team handover.
  • Introduced a two-tier token architecture (primitive + semantic) and built a Figma to Tailwind to Zeroheight pipeline as a single source of truth across design and code.
  • Created a directional spacing-token taxonomy (inset / inline / block / stack), since reused across engagements; rewrote Zeroheight docs to be simple, human and actionable.
  • Originated whatwhatdesign's three-month design-system audit framework (Understand & Diagnose, Simplify & Streamline, Empower & Embed).
  • Built AI into the workflow from the start, across the audit, the token work and the documentation, integrated rather than bolted on.
Jul 2024 – May 2025 London (Hybrid)

Bupa Global & Greystar (via Digitas UK)

Lead Digital Designer

  • Led design-system and website work for Bupa Global (international health insurance) and Greystar (global real estate) in parallel.
  • For Bupa Global, designed a brand-namespaced colour-token layer so the brand could sit on shared system primitives without affecting other Bupa entities.
  • For Greystar, delivered feature and content design (including a fee calculator) and refined availability-state language alongside the visual system.
Jan 2020 – Jul 2024 London / Remote

T. Rowe Price (via ELSE)

Lead / Senior Interaction Designer

  • Sole continuous designer across four years and three contracts delivering T. Rowe Price's enterprise design system, the deepest engagement in the portfolio.
  • As Lead (2022–24), owned design tokens, usability improvements and 14+ component 'skills', plus stakeholder management and delivery.
  • Established the foundations in three-week sprints with weekly cross-Atlantic (US/UK) workshops, then scaled scope, documentation and adoption.
Aug 2020 – Oct 2020 London

EON (via Digitas UK)

Senior Digital Designer

  • App design system, guidelines and billing / support sections.
Dec 2019 – Jan 2020 London

The Walt Disney Company

Senior Designer

  • Animation, UI and branding for brand partnerships.
Oct 2019 – Nov 2019 London

Apollo World Touring (via FITCH)

Senior UI/UX Designer

  • Responsive Webflow site with CMS and guidelines.
Oct 2010 – Aug 2019 London

John Brown Media

Senior Interaction Designer

  • Led the design of a financial-education website for RBS & NatWest; designed the Waitrose Food app for iOS and Android.
  • Lead designer for Manchester City FC's 'City Kicks' site (including the merchandising logo); work for Chelsea FC, Virgin, Monsoon and Accessorize.
Mar 2007 – Feb 2009 London

Nickelodeon UK

Digital Designer

  • Sole digital designer at Nick UK: built the dedicated SpongeBob UK site (800,000+ page views, one of the most-visited parts of Nick.co.uk) and redesigned Nick Jr, growing it to ~10,000 unique users a day.

Skills

Design systems
audit & strategy · design tokens (primitive + semantic) · component architecture · Figma library architecture · Figma-to-code pipelines · governance · documentation · AI-legible documentation · handover
Accessibility
WCAG 2.2 AA · inclusive design · accessible-by-default components
Craft
interaction design · UI design · prototyping · motion (Lottie, Rive, After Effects) · iconography · typography · brand
Facilitation
workshops · design reviews · stakeholder playbacks · knowledge transfer · team enablement
Tools
Figma · Zeroheight · Tailwind · Storybook · Supernova · Webflow · Framer · GitHub Copilot · Jira

Education

  • MA, Sequential Design University of Brighton, 2006
  • BA (First Class), Visual Communication Birmingham City University, 2003

Publication

  • Idle Idol: The Japanese Mascot Mark Batty Publisher, 2010 (author)