Hey guys,
we are currently trying to set up a better workflow in our web agency when it comes to templating and library management. Instead of rebuilding sections, components and styles every time, we’d like to start from a template that evolves with us over time. So no “snapshot” like we would get, when just duplicating the current state of our template before starting a fresh client project but rather a “living” library that we can add new things to while all client projects (including the ones in the past) can still make use of the assets added way after the creation of the file. So essentially a “master library”.
What we want to achieve is this:
A singular master library that holds all kinds of sections & components that we can continuously expand. In each client project file we would then import the master library and overwrite the standard set of variables and styles to the client’s set of colors, fonts and brand specifics (border-radius, padding, margin, etc.).
Our current challenge:
When importing the master library into a new client file the imported elements use the variables and styles from the master. While this is great for brands that use the same set of styles across all files, for us as an agency with many different clients it becomes difficult to maintain a scaling system. There is currently no way (that we know of) to easily overwrite existing variables with local ones.
See this example for a unified master library:
An alternative approach:
I hope you get the idea of what we are trying to achieve. Maybe someone already solved this issue for themselves? We just don’t want to maintain a separate library for each client since it adds lots of overhead and they are not in sync. By using this approach we could benefit from one unified library that we can use for all clients while keeping their brands locally in their own files.
Super excited to hear about your approaches!
Best, Julian from VIERLESS