For the past few weeks, we have been working on a few areas around the design system for Plasma. Keep in mind that I am only speaking of the graphic side, not code. Work is ongoing with the Union engine and the team is focused on replicating our current Breeze style using Union.There have been talks about creating the first components based on the design system, but that is more in the future.Meeting with PenPotWe held a meeting with the PenPot team and Pablo Ruiz, their CEO, met with us to discuss new changes in the PenPot app. This was a follow up to their recent conference PenPot Fest.Their team announced a few things that should make it much easier for the Plasma Design team to adopt PenPot. For example:New composite token: Typography Taiga #10200Show current Penpot version Taiga #11603Switch several variant copies at the same time Taiga #11411Invitations management improvements Taiga #3479Alternative ways of creating variants – Button Viewport Taiga #11931Reorder properties for a component Taiga #10225File Data storage layout refactor Github #7345Make several queries optimization on comment threads Github #7506With these additions, it was much easier to move assets into PenPot than before. There was less work we needed to do.We begun a migration to PenPot for the second layer of basic components and also started building more complex components. Here are some screenshots:ButtonsButton GroupsBadgesInputsDropdownsTogglesCheckboxesCheckbox GroupsAvatarsTooltipsProgress IndicatorsSlidersThese components are shared components. Then we moved into application components and this is what we have so far.Application ComponentsModalsPaginationTablesVideo screen (Miscellaneous)BreadcrumbTabsAlerts and NotificationsDate PickersFile UploadSection HeadersContent DividersIn this list, you see a lot of graphics. Each of these is supposed to represent a different state of the graphic. Users wouldn’t work with these variant sets very much, instead, they would simply search in the component catalog for what works in their design and only edit organization and labels. However, to get to that level, the designers need to create interpretations of each of these states graphically. This leads to a lot of work and a lot of graphic memory usage.There are a few more components that can be created. However, given PenPot’s reliance on the browser DOM, the more complex the components, the more lag the application runs into. Because of this issue, we have contacted PenPot to become beta testers of their new rendering engine when it comes out.They are almost at the point where they can put this out. We are eager to try and see how much faster we can go. The issue is not on PenPot but the engine that powers the editing screen. Still, we have to wait a little bit to continue.In the mean time, we can dedicate ourselves to making more application icons and completing the work there.FOSDEMAdditionally, we are setting up a workshop with the PenPot team during FOSDEM 2026. This workshop will focus on brainstorming ideas on how to more easily distribute and contribute to a design system using PenPot.For example, there is a list of ideas we proposed:Exclusions and inclusions into the design system library. This way, the original copy of the design system remains consistent with the base components unalterable. This should make it easier for casual designers looking to build a quick mockup without getting bogged down by sub components that don’t need edits. This can also ensure that the many users taking the components are using a consistent copy to the original.Automatic sharing and updating to users not in the immediate instance team.Generate a review system for components as external users to the main instance propose changes.An easy way to re-publish the design system after applying suggested changes.…and a few other ideas.Hopefully, there are good ways to get this done. We are still waiting to move our icons into PenPot. Likely, this is more of a reality once the new rendering engine is in place. The team let us know that there are a number of shape manipulation improvements appIn addition to all of these changes, we keep submitting bug reports and feature requests to the PenPot team to make the app even stronger.