Palate

Market

Design System

Palate Market is an ambitious extension of Palate Fest a prominent annual food festival held across India.

Palate Market is a B2B-B2C marketplace platform connecting businesses selling high-end food ingredients and people looking for premium food products.

The founders reached out to have a design system built for the B2C segment for their upcoming ingredient delivery venture… at the time they only had a concept designed in Google slides. I set out to design the system from the ground up considering the current and future needs of the app.

The founders wanted a simple design language, that showcased their unique brand identity while keeping it similar to adjacent products.

Principle-driven approach

I established three core principles: familiarity, accessibility and delight.

Familiarity ensures simplicity, accessibility allows everyone to pick up and effortlessly make use of the design system and delight provides us with a consistently enjoyable experience while making use of the design system.

These principles dictate how design is carried out across the app and its design system, it is how I aimed to create an experience that felt considered and worthwhile.

Building familiarity

I designed the design system with ease-of-use in mind, I did this by using the atomic design principles as guidelines for building the system, this meant that any designer current and future would be able to make use of the system.

To achieve this my process involved breaking down elements to their simplest form to maintain simplicity and consistency across scale.

Allowing designers to see element construction from the ground up builds familiarity with the design language of the app enabling efficient adoption of the design system.

Building accessibility

My approach to accessibility was to enable different users of the design system, this meant understanding their specific needs and responsibilities.

For a product manager this involved designing systems for ensuring consistency, collecting and providing feedback, tracking iteration and writing documentation.

For designers using the system this involved providing an environment wherein components are logically arranged and documented, as well as implementing a methodology that allows them to use the design system effectively while designing.

For developers referencing the design system while building this meant designing the system to feel more familiar, we did this by using conventional terminology that a developer is already familiar with.

By designing with the needs of each type of user in mind we’re able to reduce the resistance to change, minimise the initial learning curve and increase buy-in from users.

Building delight

Delight for Palate Market’s design system comes in the form of surprise elements, an unexpected factor that makes an experience memorable. I aimed to make experience of using the design system more delightful by making it more rewarding.

I made the experience of using the design system more rewarding by not stifling creativity. I made sure that even the most complex components are completely modifiable without detaching the instance.

Image of master component swapping it’s internals.

By not confining designers to predefined components we’re able to prevent the process of design turning into a chore for designers. Delight is a defiance against the predictable that leaves a lasting impression.

Respect people to make great design

I prioritised creating a world-class experience for the people who’d use the design system, guided by our principle-led thought process which was informed by the people who needed the design system.

Focusing on principles helped me create a design system with which a bond was easy to create for PMs, designers and developers over at Palate Market.

Creating experiences that deeply resonate with people is profoundly gratifying. I aim to imprint my belief into every project - the belief that thoughtfully crafted design showcases deep respect for the person using it.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Aditi Kapoor and Ruchi Sibal for providing the opportunity to work with Palate Market.

Designing for the betterment of people.