I'm Arjun Dayal, an engineer by training, a designer by practice, a music producer by identity. I believe good design isn't artsy. It's objective. Every decision has a rationale, every pattern has a reason, and when you can explain why something works, engineers, executives, and customer teams can participate in making it better. I lead design at EverCommerce across 20+ products and sample great solutions the way a producer samples great records.
Interrupting deeply ingrained workflows creates friction and skepticism. Placing the AI inline — exactly where the user already is, never above the fold or in a modal — lets it offer help only when wanted.
pulseM's screens had drifted into one-off layouts. Defining a clear visual hierarchy and a reusable component library — handed to engineering through Storybook as the single source of truth — made surfaces behave predictably, and borrowing conventions from platforms users already knew (connectors, settings) kept the patterns familiar rather than novel.
Sparked by the templating capabilities Figma Buzz announced, the templates lean on auto-layout and flexbox-style constraints to absorb variable content — business names, service lists, logos, offers — without breaking alignment or risking print cut-off. That made a pro design tool safe for non-designers to operate.
My perspective on design systems, leadership, and the craft behind the work and creativity.
I spend my days building design systems. Interestingly enough, the same idea (one master component, many instances) is a productive way to finish a beat.
How I started breaking down the silos across a 20-person remote design team and why I skipped the rigid design system everyone expects.
Let's put aside tokens for a second. What does "thinking in systems" really mean?
