Since 2019, I've been teaching a comprehensive design systems course at HAWK Hildesheim's Faculty of Design. The course bridges the gap between design theory and practical implementation, guiding students through the entire process of building scalable design systems.

Students learn to think systematically about interface design—from atomic components to complete digital products. The curriculum emphasizes both visual consistency and technical implementation, preparing students for professional work in product design and development teams.

Each semester culminates in students presenting functional design systems with complete documentation, component libraries, and live implementations.

Foundation Phase: Design tokens, typography systems, color theory, spacing scales, and semantic naming conventions.

Component Development: Atomic design principles, component architecture, variants and states, accessibility considerations.

Documentation: Writing clear component guidelines, usage examples, do's and don'ts, maintenance strategies.

Implementation: Translating design systems into code, working with CSS custom properties, building style guides.

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