Murphy Trueman — Product & design systems leader
I'm Director of Design Systems at Baseline Design, a small, hands-on consultancy that partners with product teams on the systems, tooling, and training that hold their work together.
The work I care most about is the foundational kind. Token architecture, component contracts, the governance that doesn't collapse the moment someone leaves. Most systems aren't broken; they've become too prescriptive to adapt and too closely held to survive. Over fifteen years I've helped teams move from reactive pattern libraries to infrastructure they can carry forward, increasingly for how teams actually work now with AI assistants, code generation, and tools that consume their systems in ways they were never designed for.
Writing
Your next design system user is an agent Slots and the control paradox The hidden cost of design system entropy We're still terrible at the people parts Read all →Kind words
"I almost never reach out to people cold, but Murphy wrote something a while back that stopped me, so I did. We got on a call and within minutes it was clear we were thinking about design systems and AI the same way. We've been finding reasons to work together ever since. She's one of the most thoughtful design engineers I know. Methodical, fast, and reliable in the way that lets you stop checking in. Put her on a project and she just unleashes. I'm proud of what she's built and where she's headed and glad I still get to work with her."
— TJ Pitre
"When I need someone to write for Design System University, Murphy is who I call. She doesn't need much direction, she has opinions of her own, and what she sends is always spot on. Her point of view about where the field is headed is what I appreciate most. That's why I keep coming back."
— Dan Mall