Design Kit

The design kit is the library of components in your design tool; the design system, however, is far more complete. It includes the design kit, but also the developed components, the tokens, the usage documentation and the guidelines. In most cases, a design kit will be quite enough for your product, but a design system guarantees optimal consistency between design and development, and it is often more useful for large projects that need a strict framework.

First, by making sure of the needs you have for it. In some cases, it's more practical to create your own design kit. Otherwise, you assess compatibility with the native components of the target platform (web, iOS, Android), the quality of the documentation, the update frequency, the coverage of common components and the flexibility of customisation.

When your product has a clearly distinct visual identity and public kits no longer let you respect it properly. Also, if you have a team large enough to keep it up to date, it will be worth creating your own design kit.

Keeping a design kit well maintained is teamwork, so it's important to have someone in charge who can define a specific process to ideally maintain your kit. Also remember to version your kit so that everyone across your teams knows an update has been made or is to be made.