Can I be honest about something, Reader?

I've been feeling like a bit of fraud lately.

The thing is: Kit's brand design system is far from perfect. It's got outdated components, auto layout issues, and I know there's tons of useful design patterns or templates that we haven't yet added to our system to make them easy to reuse. We've been so busy with project work that we just haven't made it happen.

And yet here I am, writing a book about how people can improve their marketing design workflows and set up systems alongside doing project work.

🙃

I was feeling down on myself, thinking:

Then something funny happened.

David, our Senior Brand Designer, did some ChatGPT deep research on ways that marketing design teams can effectively build design systems.

In amongst the results? References to work we've been doing over the past several years 😅

The AI referenced my interview podcast Inside Marketing Design and projects that we'd shared publicly in the past like working on our design system and rebuilding our marketing site.

It was a good reminder of three things:

1. That I actually do know what we need to do. It's just a matter of making the time for it.
2. That sharing publicly, even when a project is unfinished or has room for improvement, is still more valuable than waiting for perfection.
3. Wow, I interviewed a ton of great companies on my podcast!

Looking back over that list of companies (Figma, Webflow, Zapier, Linear...) I realised that while the episodes only focussed on the parts of the guest's systems that were working well, I know from the pre-recording conversations (where we decided what to cover in the interview) that every company has areas where their process isn't running smoothly.

Every brand and marketing design team has a gap between what they know they should do and what they actually have capacity to execute on at that time.

And instead of letting this gap stop me from writing my book, I actually think being in this situation is exactly why I should be the one writing it.

I still know and feel the realities of being an in-house marketing designer at a tech company every single day. I know what's realistic to implement and what isn't. I understand the competing priorities and the constant project pressure. I know that the level of organisation ebbs and flows, and when you're crushing it in one area there's often another that's a little neglected.

So that's how I'm approaching my book.

I'm sharing a framework and process you can work through to increase the impact of your marketing design assets. But I'm giving options for how to follow that process based on your reality: your current capacity, the types of projects you're working on, and the data you have access to. It's a book that aims to help you make progress, not strive for perfection.

Because in marketing design, perfection will never be a reality.

And maybe that's exactly the perspective this industry needs.

What do you think? Does hearing this confession make you more or less interested in reading the book I'm working on? Hit reply and let me know your honest thoughts!

Talk soon,

PS: If you haven't listened to it yet, you really should check out Inside Marketing Design. Just search for it in your favourite podcast app. I haven't published any new episodes recently, but I do intend to bring it back one day!

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