23 comments

  • Stephen OlmsteadStephen Olmstead, over 5 years ago

    Hey folks- two new related announcements to share hot off (and complimentary to) the Studio reveal last week. Here are the updates in a nutshell:

    Brand.ai team has joined InVision

    Brand.ai team has joined InVision

    Ehud and his team are phenomenal. If you’ve ever had the privilege of interacting with them in the past you’ll know just how hardworking and attuned to this space they truly are. Excited to be working together with this team moving forward. Speaking of which they’ve already been hard at work cranking on something very near and dear to all our hearts…

    InVision Design System Manager (DSM)

    InVision Design System Manager

    DSM is the result of taking the powerful Brand.ai product, integrating it with the core InVision platform, and expanding its scope and ability within the context of the broader design team. Practically speaking this means it is possible to create, update, and maintain your Design System via:

    • Web via InVision account
    • Sketch via plugin
    • InVision Studio via native implementation

    DSM works both internally (managing assets, symbols, colors, code, etc within context of your design tool) and also externally (easily generating a rich shareable web portal). Want to make your system public for all to consume? DSM makes that turnkey. Available December 2017.

    As always, will do our best to answer your questions in the comments. Peace! :)

    21 points
    • Christopher DavisChristopher Davis, over 5 years ago

      Ya'll are crushing it.

      14 points
    • Evan Place, over 5 years ago

      Will there be a way to import/convert a sketch library into something that can be managed with DSM? Working on some stuff now, but don't want to have to redo the library/system. Maybe thats an easily solution already. Just a thought. This looks awesome.

      2 points
  • Duke CavinskiDuke Cavinski, over 5 years ago

    This is an exciting time, but also a frustrating one. Upgrading or changing a workflow or tool set isn't as easy as upgrading a car or a phone (to say nothing of corporate politics or large teams.)

    A lot of us I think are getting used to a diaspora of tool + tool + tool (for better or worse) while Invision looks to draw us in with an Adobe Design Suite alternative, which of course, we know the follies of such a software monopoly. Are we ready for that again?

    10 points
    • Payam Rajabi, over 5 years ago

      Steven, there are just too many talented people innovating in this space and I think we all want to see that continue to make design better for everyone. I don’t know if we will see a monopoly like that again any time soon ;)

      That being said, I think that a consolidation of tools is an inevitable part of evolution. There is a growing need today for teams to design systems together, rather than draw screens alone. From what we’ve observed, the tool + tool + tool diaspora isn’t working – at least not for everyone. DSM aims to connect a workflow to make design systems together possible.

      We’ve always aimed to build tools that integrate with your existing workflow, and that’s exactly what DSM is. We also have some aspirational ideas of what a design tool could be, and that’s why we’ve created Studio.

      6 points
  • Jon MooreJon Moore, over 5 years ago

    I can't think of a better team to join InVision. Ehud and his squad know the ins and outs of design system libraries better than anyone else.

    Congratulations! Can't wait to try it out :)

    9 points
  • Emanuel S.Emanuel S., over 5 years ago

    I saw that Studio will have an Inner Shadow option, thank you!

    3 points
  • Charles PearsonCharles Pearson, over 5 years ago

    Yeah! Congrats to all, very very cool!

    3 points
  • Jason LangJason Lang, over 5 years ago

    Congrats! This is super exciting!

    3 points
  • Dan OC, over 5 years ago

    Amazing stuff! I am curious about the developer integration though.

    Are the class names generated via the symbol names? If so, how optimised is the output?

    For example now, a button would look something like:

    .btn { border: none; padding: 2rem; }

    .btn--primary { background-color: orange; color: white; }

    .btn--secondary { background-color: purple; color: pink; }

    Is the generated code attaching all styles to a single class? This really bulks out the size of the CSS file by code duplication. Instead of the above, the output of the CSS would look something like:

    .btn--primary { border: none; padding: 2rem; background-color: orange; color: white; }

    .btn--secondary { border: none; padding: 2rem; background-color: purple; color: pink; }

    2 points
    • Ehud Halberstam, over 5 years ago

      Dan, when it launches, DSM will support code export for design tokens only, and not per component. You can see an example here and read more about the sync approach here.

      Post-launch we'll be working on additional integration options. Let us know your thoughts!

      0 points
    • Mattan IngramMattan Ingram, over 5 years ago

      You might want to look at something like Webflow for more web oriented design with better code output and classes you can actually see and set.

      0 points
  • Harper Lieblich, over 5 years ago

    I switched my team over to Brand.ai a few months ago and it's been a huge success. So when InVision announced Studio a few days ago, I felt a little disappointment that it wouldn't support Brand.ai.

    This is such fantastic news, can't wait to try out the new product suite.

    2 points
    • Payam Rajabi, over 5 years ago

      So great to hear! We were also using Brand.ai internally even before the team official joined us. When DSM is out in December you contact support to migrate your Brand.ai library to a DSM account.

      0 points
  • Corey Haggard, over 5 years ago

    Really awesome seeing the great things coming out of Invision. Looking forward to see how they all put everything together when Studio comes out!

    1 point
  • Ch'an Armstrong, over 5 years ago

    Amazing! InVision keeps innovating with awesome products that designers and developers actually need.

    1 point
  • Hayk AnHayk An, over 5 years ago

    Nice :) Will it only work with symbols or also with just a group of layers? In my experience the components in the design system need to be able to resize dynamically (width and height) and right now it is very hard to do with symbols. So instead of symbols I use groups with dynamic layout (with auto-layout).

    1 point
    • Ehud Halberstam, over 5 years ago

      Hayk, you'll be able to share both groups of layers, as well as symbols with DSM.

      2 points
    • Payam Rajabi, over 5 years ago

      Hayk you can even add instances of Symbols to DSM. I've been adding instances that are already pinned to the desire sides (eg. toolbar pinned to top, left and right) using Auto Layout, and when I drop it from DSM into an Artboard it just lands exactly where I need it. I hope you'll love it. Looking forward to your feedback once it's in your hands.

      3 points
  • Timo Nagel, over 5 years ago

    So will that be part of the regular enterprise team account or is it gonna cost us extra $$$?

    0 points
    • Payam Rajabi, over 5 years ago

      Timo, when the product is released in early December, it'll be in preview mode. However, we are actively building premium functionality to meet the needs of large organizations. In early 2018, there will be two ways to use DSM—a free version and an enterprise-ready version that comes with premium features.

      4 points