The American Express Design System provides a unified language for designing American Express websites and experiences. The design system provides design resources that match our coded components and are aligned with the American Express brand. Included are colors, components, icons and glyphs, type styles, and graphic assets to get you up and running quickly.
V7 introduces several new features and enhancements to improve the creation of engaging and visually appealing experiences for customers and prospects. For design the biggest changes are moving to design tokens, surface and dark mode.
For more details on the differences read Migration Overview. For designers one of the biggest difference for v6 to v7 is the use of figma variables to power our design tokens.
To upgrade to the latest version of the design system, we recommend working closely with your product partners to identify a timeline that works for your product and team. If you are starting a new product or project, we recommend using v7 from the beginning to minimize rework.
We recommend teams doing concept work with v7 to get familiar with the system improvements and new components. Always coordinate with your product team before upgrading versions for product work.
Follow the steps in the figma guide to review and accept library updates
Save file to version history with the name ‘last save before migration to v7’. Follow the steps in the Figma guide to Create and name a version.
You should now have most of your components updated to v7
| Font Style | Suggested Replacement |
|---|---|
| Heading 1 | sans-xsmall-bold |
| Heading 2 | sans-xsmall-bold |
| Heading 3 | sans-xsmall-bold |
| Heading 4 | sans-small-regular |
| Heading 5 | sans-medium-regular |
| Heading 6 | sans-large-book |
| Body 1 | font.body.small |
| Body 2 | font.body.small.bold |
| Body 3 | font.body |
A quick way to check if you’re using the new color variables is to see if the color properties in your file are square for fill and strokes. Circle indicates v6 styles, while square indicates v7 variables.
| Color Name | Suggested Replacement |
|---|---|
| BrightBlue | Brand |
| DeepBlue | Brand Alt |
| White | Surface Background - Foreground |
| Gray-01 | Surface Background - Foreground Subtle |
| Gray-02 | Surface Background - Base |
| Gray-03 | Border Subtle |
| Gray-04 | Border Regular |
| Gray-05 | Text Subtle |
| Gray-06 | Text Regular |
| Black | Text Emphasis |
For a full list see v6 colors. There is also a airtable interface for current v6 class names and their updated colors. Can’t find a color your looking for? Try changing surfaces or ask in our slack channel #dls-design.
Update any components that were not updated in the file swap, these could be local components, deprecated DLS components, or components from other libraries.
Here’s a list of deprecated components and suggested replacement.
| Component Name | Suggested Replacement |
|---|---|
| Floating Buttons | Move to using one of Primary, secondary or tertiary buttons |
| Chevron Button | Move to using one of Primary, secondary or tertiary buttons |
| Outline (Badge) | Move to using text badge |
| Hero | Create your own local component to use inside carousel |
| Maps | Create your own local component |
| Video player. | Move to use the default browser media player |
Review your file:
Reach out to the DS team or your DS ambassador.
DS Ambassadors #dls-designConnect with the DLS Team on Slack or by email.
Check out additional resources.