A more inclusive design system

Plaid, a financial technology company, undertook an initiative to improve inclusivity in their design system. During their internal hackathon, Plaiderdays, designers focused on the theme of financial inclusion and examined their design elements, particularly color. They realized that none of their illustrations had skin tones, which led them to develop a method for selecting colors inspired by real skin tones from the world around them. The company updated all its illustrations with new skin tones and aims to continue building a more robust and inclusive illustration library in the future.