Content designers talk a lot about “creating,” “writing,” and “designing” content when describing what they do, but not as much about “reusing,” “adapting,” “assembling,” “replicating,” or “reconfiguring” it. Why don’t we draw more from the language of design systems when talking about our craft?

Content design systems are a great way to bring together all the knowledge and best practices that a content design team has spent time researching and developing and house it all in one place where content designers and UX designers can easily find it.

It’s often said that content design functions as a connective tissue between all the teams and roles involved in designing a product. Like a fungal mycelium, content designers are great connectors. We can take this analogy a step further, as content design ops is a critical part of that connective tissue.

Starting the work of designing and creating a content design system is like planting and tending to a fruit tree sapling that is tiny now, but will eventually yield an abundant harvest. The saying goes that the best time to plant a fruit tree was years ago, but the second best time is now.