We build the components, patterns, and documentation that let your team produce new pages without starting from scratch every time.
A design system isn't a Figma file full of components. It's not a style guide PDF. It's the bridge between how your brand looks in a designer's head and how it works on the web.
A useful design system includes coded components that your site actually uses, documentation that explains when and how to use each one, and enough flexibility to handle new content without requiring a designer or developer for every page. It's infrastructure for content production.
Rill
Rill's marketing team had outgrown Webflow just as their CMO needed a new pricing page, onboarding changes and a visual refresh. We rebuilt the site on Astro and Sanity with a component-based page builder and pricing modeled as structured data, and Rill's team now publishes on their own, in Sanity Studio or with Claude Code working directly in the codebase.
Copytree
On Copytree’s site, content and design are separate layers. Client logos and team bios are stored once in Sanity, and React components decide how they look: one arranges the logo grid on the homepage, another the bios and photos on the About page.
Everself
A lush, video-rich new brand experience delivered in just 8 weeks, with near perfect Lighthouse & Core Web Vitals scores
Oso
A component system inside Oso’s Webflow site that let developer marketing build use case, customer and campaign pages from reusable parts.
Selected clients
Reusable, coded UI components — headers, cards, CTAs, feature blocks, testimonial layouts, navigation patterns — built in your front-end framework (Astro, Next.js, or React) and connected to your CMS. Each component has defined content fields, responsive behavior, and accessibility built in.
Not every page needs to be designed from scratch. We define page-level patterns — how a product page is structured, what a resource hub looks like, how blog posts are laid out — so your team can produce new pages by assembling existing components in documented ways.
Consistent type scales, spacing units, and layout grids that work across screen sizes. These aren't arbitrary — they're derived from your brand guidelines and calibrated for web readability and responsive behavior.
Components are wired to your content management system so editors can build pages by selecting from the component library. Each component has its own content fields, validation, and live preview. The design system and CMS work as one system.
Every component, pattern, and design token is documented with usage guidelines, content requirements, and implementation notes. The goal is that someone who wasn't part of the original build can use the system confidently.
We start with a conversation about where you are and what you're trying to do.
You bring your goals, your constraints and the people who know the work best.
From there, we either build a first version your team takes over, or stay on as part of your team on a monthly retainer.
Either way, you own the result: code, content and accounts.
Most design agencies produce brand guidelines and Figma files. Those artifacts look great, but they leave a gap between the design and the working website. Someone still has to interpret the Figma components as responsive web code, decide how they connect to a CMS, figure out how they behave at different screen sizes, and document the rules for future use.
That translation work is where design systems break down. The Figma component and the coded component drift apart. New pages get built with slight variations. The site gradually loses coherence.
We close that gap by building the design system as code from the start, so the components your editors use in the CMS are the same ones your developers use in the codebase. Figma is where we agree on direction. The code is the source of truth.
David brings design sensibility to implementation. We flag when components won't scale well, suggest responsive adaptations, and make informed decisions about typography and spacing. Less friction between design intent and web reality.
Platforms
Content-driven marketing websites built with Astro. Front-end, CMS, hosting, and integrations handled as one system by a single experienced partner.
Bits&Letters designs and builds content management systems with Sanity. We handle content modeling, custom editing interfaces, front-end integration, and hosting.
We build enterprise-ready content systems powered by WordPress, for companies and orgs with large existing datasets or strict OSS requirements. Go headless with Astro, or keep WordPress as your whole stack. It's up to you.
Bits&Letters is a founder-led web & product consultancy based in the New York City area. We plan, design, and build websites and apps for startups and mid-size businesses across a range of industries, especially B2B tech, healthcare, and fintech.
Our founder David Demaree helped build UI tools and infrastructure, including Adobe Fonts, Material Design, and Webflow.
Now, at Bits&Letters, David works with clients to set up better systems, so you can deliver web experiences that are secure, fresh, and engaging for your users, without anyone having to spend all day worrying about the website.
If your site has more than a handful of page types and your team regularly produces new pages or content, yes. A design system can reduce production time and improve consistency.
Yes. We can audit your current site, identify recurring patterns, and formalize them into a documented component library. This is often paired with a site rebuild, but it can also be done as a standalone project that improves how your team works with the existing site.
Yes. We use Figma for early alignment on design direction and component definition. But we spend less time there than a typical design agency because we prioritize getting into code where components can be tested responsively and connected to real content.
Each component in the design system maps to a content block in your CMS. Editors build pages by selecting and arranging components, each with its own content fields and live preview. The design system defines what's possible; the CMS makes it accessible to non-technical users.
Great — we'll use them as the foundation. We translate brand guidelines into web-specific decisions: type scales, spacing systems, color tokens, responsive behavior. If the guidelines have gaps (most do when it comes to web), we fill them.
Yes, and a documented system goes a long way toward keeping those pages consistent. Named components, defined content fields and written usage notes tell an agent like Claude Code what to reach for, the same way they’d guide a new developer. Since handoff, every page added to Rill’s site has been built partly or entirely by Rill’s team working with Claude.
The documentation is written so someone who wasn’t part of the original build can work with the system confidently. That means your developers, or the agents they work with, can add a component that fits. If we’re staying on as part of your team, we can build it.
I spent most of this summer stuck on a redesign of bitsandletters.com. AI friends got me moving again by sorting out which of our past design decisions still mattered.
We’ll help you find the way forward.
