Converge is the design system conference brought to you by zeroheight

Converge

### **About the talk**

Luddites, Futurists, and the Systems of Tomorrow

The framing of conversations about the future shapes its direction. By recognizing that, we can take a leadership role in those conversations, directing our industry toward a future we want to see. John Voss will take a historical view—from the Industrial Revolution to the Italian Futurists—to demonstrate how the conversations we’re having today are centuries in the making.

### **About the speaker**

John Voss (he/him) is a product designer on the framework team at Descript. He’s been the lead designer on design systems at Stitch Fix and Squarespace and is an alum of Mule Design.

He also co-founded Queer Design Club, a group that promotes and celebrates the amazing work that happens at the intersection of queer identity and design. He cares deeply about design, designers, and our impact on the larger world.


Converge 2025: Framing the Future - John Voss

### **About the talk**

This session explores the challenges and innovations of building a design system from the ground up, where engineering and design teams worked hand-in-hand to push beyond the limits of traditional design tools. Instead of letting tool constraints dictate the output, we expanded on established practices like design tokens to develop a system of dynamic compound tokens—allowing behaviours and appearances to be expressed far more efficiently.

The result is a translation layer that bridges design and development seamlessly. Components that once required tens of thousands of state definitions can now be described on just a handful of axes—dramatically improving consistency, reducing implementation overhead, and accelerating iteration.

### **About the speaker**

Bill (he/him) is a common or garden developer, currently leading the web development efforts at HP's design system, Veneer. He drifted his way to design systems via synthetic biology, curriculum management, and automotive infotainment system SDKs. Clearly he lacks any vision for what he wants to do with his professional life. He enjoys complaining about how little sleep his six-year-old affords him and overengineering his model railway, but dislikes writing about himself in the third person.


Converge 2025: Living with Conway's Law in a Design System - Bill Collins

### **About the talk**

What if your design system wasn’t hidden, but integrated right where creativity happens? Discover how leveraging Zeroheight’s APIs can transform Figma into a unified powerhouse—making your design system accessible instantly, exactly when and where designers need it most.

Explore how seamless integration unlocks speed, drives consistency, and boost adoption across teams.

Join this session and experience the future where powerful design systems are built directly into the tools designers love.

### **About the speaker**

Julien (he/him) is a passionate UX/UI leader with 15+ years of experience working on various projects, business segments, and a multilingual environment.

Exchanging, evolving, testing and starting over. UX design's DNA mimics my career with only one goal: Get the best out of it and meet the users/customers needs with fair, sustainable and adapted proposals.


Converge 2025: Unlocking zeroheight within Figma: Supercharge your workflow with APIs - Julien Vanière 

### **About the talk**

In the design community, constraints are often seen as creativity’s enemy. A cage that stifles imagination and expression. But what if this common belief is exactly backward? This talk challenges the myth that “unbounded creativity” leads to better user experiences.

Drawing on Karl Duncker’s famous Candle Problem and the global sensation of MacGyver, we’ll explore the cognitive bias known as functional fixedness. How our minds get stuck seeing things only one way, limiting innovation. By embracing constraints, from user needs and product requirements to brand guidelines and technical boundaries, we unlock a richer, more focused kind of creativity.

This talk argues for mastering the resources and rules you are given to solve problems effectively within the box. Design systems aren’t meant to fight creativity; they are the scaffolding that helps teams support consistent, user-centered solutions while delivering a package of thoughtful design expressions.

### **About the speaker**

Donnie D'Amato (he/him) is a Design Systems Architect based in New York, recognized for his expertise in building and leading design systems that bridge the gap between design and engineering. He is the Founder and Chief Architect of Design Systems House, a consultancy focused on advancing the future of design systems for organizations of all sizes. He is an active member in design systems communities, facilitating knowledge sharing and professional growth among designers and engineers. He is well-known for his hot takes such as 'Colors Don't Solve Problems' and 'Ondark Virus' from his blog and a podcast turned live show called Wireframe. He has a book coming soon called 'Mise en Mode', meant to support creative expression through the lens of a design system.


Converge 2025: Creativity within Constraints - Donnie D'amato 

### **About the talk**

More often than not, front-end developers focus purely on improving their technical skills.

This session will demonstrate a better approach, showing how developers can produce simpler, more resilient codebases by enhancing their planning and core skills—particularly by improving how they provide and receive feedback from their designer colleagues.

### **About the speaker**

Andy Bell (he/him) is a designer, front-end developer, and the founder of Set Studio and Piccalilli, with over 15 years of experience building websites for clients ranging from early-stage startups to some of the world’s best-known multinational brands. He specializes in creating stunning, accessible websites that work for everyone—no matter their device or connection speed—while bridging the gap between design and development.

Through his educational projects, Andy has established himself as a trusted voice in the front-end community. He is the creator of the Complete CSS Course (complete-css.com), co-author of Every Layout (every-layout.dev), and publisher of The Index newsletter (piccalil.li/the-index/), where he shares insights on building simpler, more resilient codebases.

When he’s not designing or coding, Andy curates music and writes about web development, fostering a community of developers who value thoughtful, inclusive, and performant web experiences.


Converge 2025: Get the core right and the resilient code will follow - Andy Bell

About the talk

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Replays

Converge 2025: Framing the Future - John Voss

Converge 2025: Living with Conway's Law in a Design System - Bill Collins