About
I build the systems behind the screens.
I'm Ricky — a design systems leader in Chicago with 15+ years designing complex, data-heavy products across fintech, analytics, and healthcare education.
I've built systems from zero — Liquid at M1 Finance, BMW's first internal pattern library — governed them at scale, and connected design to engineering through tokens, Storybook, and Figma-to-code workflows.
Lately I've been integrating AI into design operations: using Claude and Figma's MCP to accelerate documentation, audit token architecture, and make design systems machine-readable as well as human-usable.
I still believe what got me into this: design changes outcomes — for the business, and for the person on the other side of the screen. Systems are just how you make that change stick.
How I work
Four steps, on repeat
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step/01
Define
Understand why it matters before deciding what to build. What problem are we solving, and what does it unlock for the business?
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step/02
Understand
The people using it — and the teams maintaining it. Both audiences shape what "good" means.
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step/03
Design
Tangible solutions, shared early, refined in the open. The fastest way to improve design is to show it to others.
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step/04
Validate
Test, measure adoption, evolve. A system is never done — it's living infrastructure.