Studio 53° helps organisations get more value from their design systems by solving the people, culture and organisational challenges that technical solutions alone can't fix.
“The hardest problems in design systems are rarely technical. They live in people, culture and how organisations work.”
I'm Shaun Bent, and Studio 53° is my consulting practice. I spent nearly nine years leading design systems and accessibility at Spotify, where I founded Encore, Spotify's unified design system, and led engineering for it as it grew across the company. Before that, I led front-end architecture for the responsive redesign of BBC Sport, and helped build the first coded implementations of the BBC's GEL design system.
Nearly two decades of doing this work taught me one thing above all else: the hardest problems in design systems are rarely technical. They live in people, culture, and how organisations work. A struggling design system is usually a symptom. The cause sits in the gap between what leadership expects, what the team is building, and the conditions the team is working in.
That gap is where Studio 53° works.
I work with organisations whose design systems should be delivering more than they are. That tends to look like one of three things.
A focused review of your design system, your team, and the organisation around it. You get a clear, honest picture of what's holding things back and what to do about it, in language leadership will actually act on.
Ongoing strategic support for teams navigating change at scale: building alignment across disciplines, making the case for investment, and helping your design system leads grow into the role the organisation needs from them.
Design systems live or die in the space between disciplines. I'm as comfortable in an engineering discussion as I am in a design critique, and I understand product thinking and how delivery actually works. That range means I can spot the misalignments that people inside any single discipline can't see, and help you build the shared understanding that makes everything else possible.
There are excellent consultants who audit component libraries, restructure token architecture, and build Figma libraries. If that's what you need, I'll happily point you to someone brilliant. The value I bring sits upstream of that work: making sure it's the right work in the first place.
Honesty with warmth. I ask uncomfortable questions, and I ask them kindly.
Even when it would be easier to tell you what you want to hear. To work with me is to get honesty with warmth: the uncomfortable questions, asked kindly.
If the work won't create genuine value, or it conflicts with what I believe, I'll say so and step aside.
The best outcome of any engagement is an organisation that no longer needs me. And I share what I know generously, because I've benefited from communities that do the same.
I write about the people and culture side of design systems, lessons from nearly a decade at Spotify, and honest takes on where our industry gets things wrong.
If your design system should be delivering more than it is, I'd love to hear about it. I offer a free 30-minute conversation to explore whether I can help. And if I'm the wrong person for your problem, I'll tell you, and point you towards someone better suited.
Shaun Bent Studio 53° · 53°N · Preston & Manchester
