Beneath the surface, there’s a rich ecosystem of design systems that quietly power the experiences of millions—often with just as much innovation, clarity, and care. In this article, we’ll take you beyond the usual suspects to explore five exceptional systems that deserve a spot on every designer’s radar.

Contributors

By Polina Reut, Hanna Matsiyeuskaya and Ilya Greben

from Design Systems Surf team

Top 5 Design Systems you might’ve missed

When talking about design systems, everyone knows Google’s Material Design, Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines, and Microsoft’s Fluent.

Material Design by Google: Google discovered the fundamental grammar of digital interfaces—one that feels instantly familiar to users without them ever realizing they're being subtly guided through complex information spaces. Material Design rethinks interface physics through calibrated shadows and elevation models. It combines simplicity with depth to create familiar yet dynamic experiences across Android, web, and beyond.

Human Interface Guidelines by Apple: Apple’s design system emphasizes clarity, minimalism, and consistency across iOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS. It’s renowned for detailed guidance on interaction patterns, navigation logic, and a seamless user experience rooted in human-centric design.

Fluent by Microsoft: Fluent is the reason why you can recognize the Microsoft feel across products without them looking like identical twins. Instead of forcing one rigid visual language, this design system gives you components that adapt to their surroundings without sacrificing what makes each product special.

But what about other hidden gems?

There are design systems created by companies of all sizes that might not dominate the headlines, but they're solving the same challenges: creating coherent, user-friendly experiences that scale.

We’ll highlight five exceptional design systems that might not make every “most famous” list—but absolutely deserve your attention. If you’re looking for smart documentation patterns, clever naming conventions, or inspiration for scaling your own system, these are the ones to explore, learn from, and borrow ideas.

Carbon Design System from IBM

When IBM faced the challenge of unifying user experiences across its product universe, they created the Carbon Design System, a living, breathing design ecosystem that is now the gold standard in the industry.

Carbon delivers a cohesive visual language that works across IBM's vast product landscape, from enterprise software to developer tools.

What resonates most is Carbon's approach to accessibility. IBM actually brought in real people who use screen readers, keyboard navigation, and other assistive technologies to test every single component. Their team documented specific implementation patterns for everything from focus states to ARIA labels - which is an absolute lifesaver when your team is facing tight deadlines and strict accessibility requirements.

The theming capabilities are particularly elegant. Carbon uses a robust system of design tokens and variables that allow IBM teams to adapt components across different products and business units—without breaking the interaction patterns users already know. For example, adjusting a primary action color from IBM blue to another approved palette automatically updates button states, focus indicators, and interactive elements while maintaining proper contrast ratios. It strikes that perfect balance between maintaining visual coherence and supporting internal product flexibility.

A few words about Carbon's documentation. The Figma and Sketch resources are organized with components that actually work the way you expect. The system includes detailed usage guidelines that help you make informed design decisions instead of simply providing visual assets.

Let’s not forget about the community Carbon has fostered. For designers, this means access to workshops, detailed case studies from other design teams, and direct channels to the creators when you inevitably encounter edge cases.

Base Design System from Uber

Base powers experiences of millions of Uber Eats, Uber Driver App, and Uber Freight users.

The system's approach to accessibility is something we can all learn from. Rather than the dreaded last-minute scramble to meet WCAG guidelines (we've all been there), Base builds accessibility thinking directly into its foundations. Every color choice, interaction pattern, and component has been tested with real users of assistive technologies—saving design teams countless hours of rework and retrofitting.

With their token system, designers can adapt components to different Uber sub-brands while maintaining core interaction patterns. This solves that eternal design system tension between consistency and flexibility that we wrestle with daily.

The documentation reflects a deep understanding of how designers actually work. You'll also find usage guidelines that explain not just how to use components, but why certain design decisions were made.

Evo from eBay

eBay’s Evo Design System was built to serve a truly global user base—from German car enthusiasts to American fashion shoppers. eBay's solution was to build a flexible design framework that somehow maintains a coherent identity across wildly different cultural contexts and user needs.

Evo perfectly balances brand consistency and cultural relevance. Their proprietary Market Sans typeface was crafted to work seamlessly across everything from Latin alphabet to Thai scripts. If you've ever struggled with font inconsistencies when your product goes international, you know what a headache this solves.

Their interactive Color Pairing Tool and Type Tester are the kinds of resources that actually make designers' lives easier rather than just looking good in presentations. We suggest clearing an evening to explore the eBay Playbook, which contains over 2,700 practical assets and useful tips.

For those of us designing complex systems that need to work across different contexts, Evo offers valuable lessons in creating structure without rigidity. It shows how thoughtful design systems can simplify our workflows while still leaving room for the creative problem-solving that makes our work meaningful.

Polaris from Shopify

The Polaris Design System supports over a million merchants worldwide. Built with accessibility, content strategy, and brand flexibility in mind, Polaris proves that great design systems empower businesses of all sizes.

The first aspect where Polaris stands out is accessibility. The system provides concrete guidelines that actually help you design better interfaces. They emphasize keeping content concise and scannable—critical for busy merchants who are managing their shop while juggling customer service, inventory, and a thousand other tasks.

The system's content strategy is something we can all learn from. Polaris recognizes that UI copy is a crucial part of the user experience. Their voice and tone guidelines help ensure that error messages, confirmation dialogs, and helper text all speak the same language, creating a cohesive experience that builds merchant confidence.

Perhaps most clever is their implementation of design tokens. For anyone who's worked with multiple brands or white-label products, you'll appreciate how Polaris uses tokens to allow partners to customize the look and feel while maintaining the underlying interaction patterns. This solves that eternal tension between brand expression and usability.

The documentation itself feels designed for how designers actually work. It's structured to answer real questions we face during the design process rather than simply cataloging components.

Polaris shows how thoughtful system design can empower merchants of all technical abilities to build and grow their businesses—proving that good design isn't just about aesthetics, but about creating tools that unlock human potential.

Lightning from Salesforce

Salesforce’s Lightning Design System (SLDS) goes beyond UI—it transforms how teams collaborate on design at scale. With utility-first classes, semantic tokens, and deep accessibility support, SLDS sets the tone for enterprise design done right.

Through their design token system, they've created something more profound than just a style guide. Rather than hardcoding that perfect blue (#0070D2, anyone?), designers use semantic tokens like --lwc-brandAccessible. This subtle shift moves teams from thinking about specific colors to thinking about design intentions and relationships.

Instead of just providing the visual aspects, Lightning gives you the full package—the semantic HTML structure, accessibility requirements, and interaction patterns. This fixes that problem when you hand off that perfectly designed button to development, only to discover later that the hover effects or keyboard focus styles somehow vanished during implementation.

Salesforce solved the challenge of designer-developer collaboration. Need to tweak that spacing or align text just right? Lightning's utility classes give you that pixel-perfect control without messing up the whole system.

Accessibility is baked into Lightning's DNA. Instead of handing you a boring checklist, they show you exactly how to make things accessible, from getting your colors right to implementing those tricky ARIA attributes.

Customization used to be a nightmare in enterprise design? But the theming features in SLDS 2 fixed that. Teams can now add their own flair without turning your product into a visual disaster zone.

Admins can apply brand colors through clicks while designers and developers maintain system integrity—a balancing act that anyone who's worked with multiple stakeholders will appreciate.

Lightning shows how thoughtful design systems can transform not just interfaces but how entire organizations approach design—creating a shared language that elevates everyone's work.

These five systems are outstanding examples of how thoughtful design can transform complex user experiences into seamless interactions.

What else is there?

For additional inspiration, be sure to check out GitHub’s Primer, Adobe’s Spectrum, GitLab’s Pajamas, Pinterest’s Gestalt, and Wise’s design systems. Below we briefly explain why.

Primer from GitHub

GitHub's Primer is a masterclass in designing for developers. It's great to see how the design team managed to make highly technical interfaces feel approachable without dumbing them down. Their Octicons set a standard for how functional icons should work in technical products, striking that perfect balance between clear meaning and visual simplicity.

Spectrum from Adobe

When your users range from casual hobbyists to professional designers and video editors, your design system needs serious range—which is exactly what Adobe delivers with Spectrum. The system somehow makes Photoshop, Premiere, and Acrobat feel like members of the same family without forcing identical patterns where they don't belong. Their color system handles both the creative expression needed for design tools and the clarity required for productivity features.

Pajamas from GitLab

GitLab's Pajamas is known for its transparency and pragmatism. Their documentation honestly tackles the messy realities and difficult compromises that real-world implementation requires.

Gestalt from Pinterest

Pinterest's Gestalt reflects the visual-first nature of their product beautifully. The system tackles the challenge of creating interfaces where user content is the star, not the UI itself. Their masonry layouts and image handling components solve genuinely difficult design problems around variable content sizes and focal points. What's particularly clever is how Gestalt's components subtly reinforce Pinterest's core value of visual discovery—the system itself embodies the product's purpose rather than just serving as a container for it.

Wise Design System

Wise has created a system that makes money movement feel human rather than institutional. Their approach to displaying currency conversion, fees, and transfer times brings clarity to processes that are typically opaque in financial products. The system's strength lies in how it maintains a conversational, straightforward tone while dealing with the precision required for financial transactions. Their internationalization handling is particularly impressive—making experiences feel local across dozens of different markets and currencies.