Figma Component Library

Adobe XD had been the software of choice for several years across the BBC's product teams. But with Figma evolving into being the industry standard over recent years, departments across the organisation started to migrate their work and libraries over to Figma.

Despite the main Product team being based in Manchester, there are other product teams across other locations, including a core group of designers based at New Broadcasting House in Central London.

As we worked at a different cadence to other teams - this resulted in our need for a working component library and foundational design system to be a top priority.

I was tasked with getting the London team up and running in Figma, starting with a fully tokenised component library and foundational design system.

Using my experience from working on mature design systems and component libraries at a previous company, I applied similar thinking to building out a foundational system for BBC News.

Published as a shared file, it was designed for any team across the organisation to use and contribute to. Alongside reusable components, I built typographic and colour token libraries — ensuring new components could be created from consistent, shared foundations.

The new component library enabled the London team to design, test and build at speed. It improved collaboration and consistency across outputs, while laying the groundwork for a unified design system spanning Web, Social and TV across BBC News.

Despite teams previously working in silos - this has given product teams across the organisation the ability to share and merge working practices, to hopefully set the path for BBC-wide Figma based component libraries.