Skip to Content

Design Systems

Challenge

Strong design systems reduce friction, speed up development, and ensure consistent, accessible user experiences at scale. These operational improvements are part of my broader approach to Design Operations. I’ve led, rebuilt, and merged multiple design systems across fast-scaling startups and enterprise tools. My approach to leading systems work is grounded in strong Creative Leadership. From ground-up builds to complex migrations, I specialize in getting systems ready for real-world use—and adoption.

Outcomes

  • Successfully merged and scaled design systems across multiple platforms and brands
  • Reduced design/development friction through system clarity and consistency
  • Improved accessibility compliance across components
  • Provided invited UX guidance to Microsoft Fabric’s team, shaping future system documentation and onboarding processes

Press

Designing for Microsoft Fabric: How Osmos Built the AI Data Wrangler, Osmos Blog, March 2025

Osmos

Inherited the existing design system, cleaned it up, and formalized core components to improve usability, consistency, and team velocity.

the Osmos design system showing color palettes, button styles, icons, page templates, spacing tokens, delete guidelines, data display rules, personas, and typography. Amber Sawaya inherited and refined this system to improve clarity, consistency, and speed across the design and engineering teams.

“Amber swiftly grasped highly intricate concepts and delivered exceptional solutions. Our customers have provided enthusiastic feedback on the improved productivity of Osmos’ intuitive user interface.” — Naresh Venkat, CTO, Osmos

Osmos on Fabric

Led the integration of the Osmos design system into Microsoft Fabric, aligning styles, tokens, and components to meet enterprise-grade standards. See how this integration played out in real product work on AI Data Transformations.

The Osmos design system adapted for Microsoft Fabric, featuring UI specs for ribbons, file selection modals, page templates, side navigation, and data tables. Amber Sawaya led this integration, aligning the design system with Microsoft’s Fabric framework to ensure consistency, usability, and enterprise readiness.
Screenshot of the Osmos article “Designing for Microsoft Fabric,” showing how Amber Sawaya integrated two design systems using shared variables, Figma file relationships, and component alignment to build the AI Data Wrangler interface.


For a deeper look at how we combined the Osmos and Microsoft Fabric design systems, check out the full guide Designing for Microsoft Fabric: How Osmos Built the AI Data Wrangler—from token alignment to Figma architecture.

Shoreline Health

Co-inventor on the original platform patent and supported multiple designers as they built out the Shoreline design system.

Design system for Shoreline’s cancer patient education platform, showcasing brand colors, functional UI color sets, typography specs, button styles, elevation guides, and avatar color usage. Amber Sawaya co-invented the platform patent and collaborated with a team of designers to build a cohesive, accessible system tailored for patient-focused healthcare experiences.

“Amber understands the hierarchy of UX and UI needs and nails requirements with great looking designs and intuitive interfaces. Her mastery of technologies make her a natural extension of our team.” — Chuck Sharp, CEO, Shoreline

Signed Shoreline prototype dated January 13, 2023, showing team approval before patent submission. Includes UI sketches and designer signatures, highlighting Amber Sawaya’s role in leading UX strategy and product definition for a patent-backed platform.

Final Shoreline prototype, signed by the full team, before being submitted as part of the platform’s patent filing.

MarketDial

Oversaw multiple designers and helped scale internal systems for consistency and velocity.

Detailed view of the MarketDial design system featuring color palettes, typography rules, button styles, UI components, form behaviors, data visualization elements, and layout patterns. Amber Sawaya led efforts to scale the system across multiple designers, streamlining workflows and improving consistency in a complex enterprise platform for retail experimentation and analytics.
Senior UX designer Amber Sawaya leads a collaborative design review for MarketDial’s internal platform. Two designers discuss a large hand-drawn UX flow on the wall, analyzing system architecture, user journeys, and cross-team alignment strategies.

Designers reviewing UX flows for MarketDial’s internal system. Amber led the session to align cross-functional teams around product architecture, user journeys, and design system integration.

unitQ

Helped their internal design team streamline the design system, implemented variables, and optimized components for full dark mode support.

unitQ design system documentation showcasing light and dark mode components, including color palettes, typography, buttons, form fields, status messages, and data tables. Amber Sawaya supported the internal team by streamlining the system, introducing design variables, and fully optimizing the components for dark mode compatibility and scalable design consistency.

Joust & Technicolor

Joined as their UX designer and collaborated with the internal team to design and launch Joust, a dailies platform that later became Technicolor’s Rush.

JOUST design system showing dark-mode UI specs for branding, toolbar elements, buttons, ribbons, tables, forms, and popovers. Amber Sawaya joined as the UX designer and partnered with the internal team to design and launch this video dailies platform, which later evolved into Technicolor’s Rush.

Zorroa

Built the design system from the ground up. Led naming conventions, accessibility standards, and edge case coverage with a corner case checklist and a clear design system change process.

Zorroa design system documentation displaying color tokens, personas, widget components, table elements, a UI glossary, and corner case checklists. Amber Sawaya contributed to formalizing and expanding this internal design system, supporting a complex AI-driven analytics platform with consistent components and naming standards across data-heavy tools.

“Our experience with working with Amber is outstanding—flawless project management, clear communication, and a relentless ability to deliver. There are UI designers and then there is Amber, who seems to have ‘creative AND usable interactive interface’ running through her blood. She is a complete joy to work with.” — Elizabeth Luffy, Executive Chair, Zorroa

Running design system naming workshops at Zorroa to align visual language, taxonomy, and naming conventions across cross-functional teams.

Facilitator leads a design system naming workshop at Zorroa, organizing post-it notes on a wall to sort components and categories by function, clarity, and usage. A laptop with design tools is open on the table.
Zorroa team participates in a hybrid workshop, with in-person and remote collaborators working on naming conventions and taxonomy for their design system. Sketches, notes, and design briefs are spread across the table.

Limnu

Built the design system from the ground up to support a collaborative whiteboarding tool used in remote and hybrid teams.

Limnu design system showcasing branding colors, button styles, typography, notification UI, admin tools, onboarding overlays, and interactive board elements. Amber Sawaya helped bring structure and clarity to the system during the early growth phase, supporting a collaborative whiteboard platform with engaging, playful UX.
Presentation slide filled with positive user quotes praising Limnu’s simplicity, ergonomics, and whiteboard UX. Highlights the impact of Amber Sawaya’s UX leadership in creating a highly loved collaborative tool.
Limnu CEO presents a traction slide showing exponential user growth, global reach, Slack integration, and key milestones. Amber Sawaya’s UX and design system contributions supported platform scalability and early adoption.

The CEO of Limnu presenting company traction and user feedback. Amber led the design system and UX work that helped drive this growth and customer love.

Due to confidentiality agreements, only selected portions of my work are shown here. 
I’d be happy to walk you through more details in person or over a call.