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Christopher Alexander and the history of design systems

designsystems.com · 895 words · saved by 1 readers

Architect Christopher Alexander's A Pattern Language proposes starting with fundamental building blocks that are then adapted to form something new.

What makes a design great? The way the carefully chosen colors blend and play off each other? A set of pleasing shapes perfectly placed in space? A seamless interactive experience that brings joy and pleasure to its users? Or is it something higher than that? A certain je ne sais quoi, perhaps unnameable, but not unknowable. Architect and design theorist Christopher Alexander called that spirit, that energy, that … magic a “quality without a name,” or QWAN. Not only did he seek to define it, but he created a movement, whose purpose is to help anyone create meaningful architecture. His 1977 boo

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