Glossary
Key terms used in the DESIGN.md format, design token standards, and design systems.
- #Brand Guidelines
- Documentation that defines an organization's visual identity rules, covering colors, typography, logo usage, spacing, and tone of voice.
- Learn about Brand Guidelines and DESIGN.md
- #Component Token
- A token scoped to a specific component that references a semantic token, such as button-background mapping to color-primary.
- #Contrast Ratio
- A WCAG accessibility metric that measures the luminance difference between a foreground color and its background, expressed as a ratio such as 4.5:1.
- Learn about Colors
- #Design System
- A collection of reusable design decisions, component specifications, and usage guidelines that ensures consistent user experiences across a product or organization.
- #Design Token
- A named, context-independent value that encodes a design decision, such as a color, spacing step, or typeface choice.
- Learn about Design Tokens: The Complete Guide
- #DESIGN.md
- An open plain-text file format, published by Google under Apache 2.0, that stores a product's visual identity as YAML frontmatter and Markdown prose in a repository-resident file.
- Learn about DESIGN.md Overview
- #DTCG
- The W3C Design Tokens Community Group, which maintains a JSON interchange format for design tokens using dollar-prefixed keys such as $type, $value, and $description.
- #Elevation
- A visual hierarchy technique that uses shadow, blur, or layering to communicate the perceived depth of a UI element relative to its surroundings.
- #Primitive Token
- A raw, context-free design value assigned to a named token, such as blue-500 mapping to the hex value #3B82F6.
- #Semantic Token
- A token that maps a design intent to a primitive value, such as color-primary referencing the blue-500 primitive.
- #Token Reference
- The {token-name} alias syntax used in DESIGN.md YAML frontmatter to express that one token's value is derived from another named token.