Which approach helps prevent duplication of colors and spacing across components?

Which approach helps prevent duplication of colors and spacing across components?

• A. Duplicate tokens in each component.
• B. Embed tokens in a separate CSS file per component.
• C. Maintain a centralized design token system and share across components.
• D. Write tokens in JavaScript instead of CSS.

Answer: (C)

Centralized design tokens shared across components provide a single source of truth for colors and spacing. When every component pulls from the same token library, a change to a token updates all components, eliminating duplicates and preventing drift. This makes the design system scalable, ensures consistent styling, and simplifies theming and maintenance. Duplicating tokens in each component creates multiple copies of the same values, so updates become a maintenance headache and visual inconsistencies creep in. Embedding tokens in a separate CSS file per component still fragments the token system, leading to the same duplication and drift across the UI. Writing tokens in JavaScript instead of CSS doesn’t automatically solve the problem either; without a centralized, shared token library that all parts of the system reference, duplication and inconsistency can persist.

Centralized design tokens shared across components provide a single source of truth for colors and spacing. When every component pulls from the same token library, a change to a token updates all components, eliminating duplicates and preventing drift. This makes the design system scalable, ensures consistent styling, and simplifies theming and maintenance.

Duplicating tokens in each component creates multiple copies of the same values, so updates become a maintenance headache and visual inconsistencies creep in. Embedding tokens in a separate CSS file per component still fragments the token system, leading to the same duplication and drift across the UI. Writing tokens in JavaScript instead of CSS doesn’t automatically solve the problem either; without a centralized, shared token library that all parts of the system reference, duplication and inconsistency can persist.