Updates #2 - January 2025
Hello and happy new year, design system community 👋
There's no better time to build and grow than today, we're starting 2025 with some good news to set the tone for the year.
And since we're all busy planning, let us know how we can help you achieve your goals this year.
We're counting on our joint forces to be unstoppable!
In this issue:
- Major milestone: Web Core package reaches v9
- Accessibility guidelines for design, code, and content
- New process for confidential icons
Web Core package v9 released
Version 9 of the Web Core package is a massive leap forward for our code maturity and quality: up to 6X increase in scripting and rendering performance!
We converted all our components' styling, from dynamic CSS-in-JS to static plain CSS. Theming will be driven solely by our design tokens, represented as CSS variables.
Tailwind CSS Preset now shares and uses the same CSS variables as our Web Components, increasing consistency between our packages and boosting the overall performance.
Important: starting now, you're in control of importing the CSS tokens when using our packages. Check the full walkthrough in our v9 migration guide.
Explore our other Web packages, which include assets, tokens, framework-specific resources, and marketing resources, to further simplify your work.
Tailwind CSS package v1 launched
With design tokens now used exclusively as CSS variables, we were able to make several improvements and simplifications in our Tailwind CSS Preset package.
When configuring the preset, you no longer need to consider which brand(s) you need - just use our simple CSS-class. For best results, use it along with Web Components.
Read the full details in our Tailwind CSS v1 migration guide.
Kendo UI theme now available
We released an "early access" package for users of Kendo UI, containing a theme aligned with the Volvo Group brand guidelines. The theme includes brand-aligned colors, typography, and icons.
Although it doesn't bring all the benefits of our Development Kit, this package is an easy way to increase visual consistency and brand compliance in apps built with Kendo UI.
Get the package from our Kendo UI documentation page.
Improved accessibility guidelines
In December, we shared the accessibility directives that must guide us in meeting the requirements of the 2025 European legislation. We're now happy to announce our updated, practical accessibility guidelines for design, development, and content.
They're based on our compliance goal, the WCAG 2.2 AA standard.
Check our new Accessibility section for info about:
- Getting started with accessibility
- Design - guidelines for graphic, audio, and video content
- Development - guidelines for assistive technologies and robust coding
- Content - guidelines for helpful, readable, and inclusive copy
New approach for confidential icons
The Volvo Group icon library is available to internal and external audiences alike for easy, continuous access.
However, as icons often get produced before the official launch of the associated product or service, they can unintentionally become a risk factor once added to our library.
To avoid this, we added a new step to our icon request process to ask for a confidential or non-confidential classification for each new icon.
For more details or questions, contact us at icons@volvo.com.
Connect with us
We're here to support you. Reach out with your ideas, questions, or requests about component design, code and usage, icons, accessibility, or UX writing.
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Contact
designkit@volvo.com
developmentkit@volvo.com
icons@volvo.com
uxwriting@volvo.com
Resources
Design Kit in Figma
Development Kit in Storybook
Volvo Group Design System site