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TokenKit

A design system, and what it made

TokenKit

It started as a way to design on the real thing. Then it started making things.

Of building for the web

Tables, then floats, then grids, then tokens. Each era got better at saying what a page is, and the same few ideas kept coming back.

Design still lives in pictures of the page

A design file is a picture. It gets handed off, rebuilt by someone else, and drifts. Each change is a flow: draw it, hand it over, build it again, check it later.

Free the values, and design in loops

Put the decisions in tokens, so they belong to no one tool, and design on the real thing, where a change is checked the moment it's made. That's a loop, not a flow.

The kit

Primitives read only tokens. A brand arrives as a pack. Gates check every pair of text and surface on the real page, every run.

One contract · six brands

Fill — Label — Surface — Corners —

It started making things

Seven weeks, on the kit's own Timeline. Each date is the day it first landed.

  1. The kit

    TokenKit 0.1: a contract of tokens, shells and primitives, and a contrast gate that checks what the real page shows. Open the Storybook

  2. token-kit.dev

    The front door opens, with Loops and Flows, The Whole Story.

  3. Thirty years

    The history of building for the web, told on this same Timeline: From Tables to Tokens.

  4. Scene-Flix

    The first film, made with the kit's tokens, its claims checked and its sources linked. Watch on Scene-Flix

  5. Listen

    The songs from the cartoons, on their own, with the words lighting up as they're sung. Listen

  6. Play, and members

    Boosty Crawlins, free to play. Member accounts, and Work with Tony, priced in the open.

  7. The studio

    Make a film with the studio crew, and a meeting room for the Family. A recording booth is coming. Sign in

    The kit, 18 Sep

    Boosty Crawlins

    An original game: a space-funk bassist in a musical sandbox where the world is an instrument. Free to play, nothing to install.

    New on Scene-Flix

    Short cartoons and history films, made with the kit's own tokens and packs. Each one here has had its on-screen claims checked, and links its sources. Their songs are on Listen, with the words lighting up as they're sung.

    The studio

    Members can ask the studio crew to make a film, and the Family has a meeting room of its own.

    Coming: a recording booth.

    Work with Tony

    Brand packs, kit care and model loops, priced in the open.