Between the Lines: June 2026
Announcing our partnership with Southleft, what we're watching at Config, and why we've been telling some teams to hold off.
It's been a busy June: we announced a partnership, kicked off new engagements, held several Figma workshops, and are now heading into Config. Here’s a look at what we’ve been working on and thinking about as we close out the month:
On our minds
Config is here, and the lead-up has felt different this year. A lot has already shipped ahead of the conference, which raises a real question: what are they saving for the room? The announcements so far read less like surprises and more like confirmations of a direction most people already sensed. The canvas is becoming an environment, not just a surface. We're watching to see how far they take that, and how they think about the tools now sitting alongside them.
A lot of the work we're doing right now is focused on AI-readiness, and from what we can see, that's the direction Figma is leaning into as well. Config tends to sharpen that picture. We'll report back after.
In the work
Earlier this month, Baseline and Southleft announced that we're partnering. The thinking behind it is straightforward: design systems work is strongest when strategy and implementation stay in close contact, and Southleft are the people we'd want on the other side of that. Design systems strategy, architecture, governance, and design on our end. Engineering, frontend development, and AI integration on theirs. Murphy and Joey have already kicked off a first engagement together, focused on AI readability.
Murphy wrapped up a small healthtech engagement this month, focused on component structure and foundations. One thing that came out of it was a set of custom Claude-powered documentation tools, built to help a smaller team stay on top of things without documentation becoming a project in itself. She's also still deep in a longer mobile design systems project, working through what it takes for a library to hold up when engineering teams, AI tools, and cross-platform requirements are all pulling on it at once.
Joey has been back and forth to San Francisco more than once this month, and there's something in the works from those trips we'll share when we're ready. He also joined the Code & Pixels podcast, which is live now. Enquiries have been coming in steadily, and a lot of his thinking lately has been about how to grow the business in a way that stays true to the work: finding engagements that challenge the team, sit in territory we care about, and are the right fit for what Baseline is trying to be.
Katie has been running Figma training sessions with a few different teams, with brand and marketing teams getting the most out of it. A lot of the work has been on design systems and component thinking, including multi-campaign modes so a single system can flex across campaigns without the brand drifting. Alongside that, she's been digging into where AI fits, using the Figma MCP server, running experiments with brand design systems, and seeing how far AI can push asset creation and design iteration. There's more to share on that soon.
Notes from the work
Something we've been saying to a few teams lately: it's okay to wait. The pace of change in the tooling right now is fast enough that decisions made this month can look different in six weeks. We've been telling some teams to hold off on certain integrations until there's more clarity on where Figma is heading, and that's not a cop-out. It's the more considered call.
The instinct to move fast and lock things in is understandable, especially when there's pressure to show progress. But integrations built on assumptions about where a tool is going can create more work than they save when those assumptions turn out to be wrong. The teams that handle this well tend to separate decisions that are genuinely time-sensitive from the ones that just feel that way. Most of them are the latter.
If you're weighing something like this right now, the question is simple: what do we lose by waiting another month? If the answer is not much, wait.
At Config this week
With Config right around the corner, Joey and Katie will be joining in person, while Murphy will be up bright and early, coffee in hand, in front of the fire. A few sessions we're excited for:
Joey
The edge case is everyone by Willie King, Business Development Manager @ T-Mobile and Lex Liley, Associate Director, Product Strategy @ Kettle
Since the start of his design career, Joey has been drawn to the work that starts with people who are often designed around, rather than designed for. This talk, about how T-Mobile partnered with the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community to rethink voice communication, is a good example of what happens when you take that seriously.
Beyond design systems: designing for robots and seniors by Anna Oh, Head of Product and Design @ Norbert Health
AI is on everyone's mind right now, but Joey keeps coming back to what it looks like when the technology has to earn trust from the people who need it most. Anna Oh's team worked directly with patients and nurses to build systems that help robots listen, respond, and comfort. How cool is that?!
Katie
The hidden craft of interface design in modern film by Jayse Hansen, Fictional UI Design Director @ ØFFGRID
Early in her career, Katie spent time at a motion design studio in LA, and it gave her a deep fascination with designing interfaces for screen worlds that don't actually exist. A session dedicated entirely to that craft is one she's been looking forward to since the schedule dropped.
Managing multiple creative passions in a world that tells you to specialize by Lauren Hom, Lettering Artist & Designer @ Hom Sweet Hom
Katie took a lettering workshop with Lauren back in 2022, and it stuck. This talk sits close to home: Katie has always had more creative directions than a single lane could hold, and leaning into that rather than narrowing has shaped a lot of how she works.
Murphy
Design systems anarchy by Lauren LoPrete, Head of Design Foundations @ Mercury
Lauren's work has been on Murphy's radar for a while, and this one connects directly to territory she's been writing about. The argument that quality comes from culture rather than compliance comes up a lot in the work. She's going in wanting to hear how Lauren draws the line between the two, and what she thinks actually has to change.
Own the loop: how designers and researchers win with AI evals by Setor Zilevu, Researcher @ Figma
Measurement as a design problem, not an engineering one. As AI capabilities level out, the teams that define what "good" looks like for real users are the ones with the advantage. Murphy is watching this one closely, given how much of the current work is focused on AI readability and what it means to evaluate a system's output against actual human needs.
We'll report back next week on what landed, and what we think this means for the work.
Thanks for reading, and see you next week! 👋💛
– The Baseline team
In case you missed it, our team published a few other things this month. Check them out:
