Rebranding a 1,540-component system in 14 days

The fear with any purchased design system is that your product will look like everyone else's. The fix is a disciplined retheme — and with a token-driven system it fits comfortably inside two weeks. This is the playbook we hand every Pegasus customer, and the basis of our refund guarantee.

Days 1–3: decide, don't design

Inventory your brand: primary hue, neutral temperature, radius personality (sharp, soft, or pill), type stack, and elevation style. Write each decision down as a token value, not a vibe. If the brand guide says 'approachable,' your job is to translate that into --radius-md: 12px. The retheme goes fast when every debate ends in a number.

Days 4–6: primitives first

Change primitive tokens in one place — the Figma variable collection and the code theme object. Do not touch a single component. Resist the urge to 'fix' components while primitives are moving; you will chase your own tail. At the end of day 6, both surfaces should already look 80% like you.

Days 7–9: semantic sweep

Walk the semantic layer: action colors, surface elevations, feedback states. This is where accessibility gets locked in — check contrast on every text-on-surface pair once, at the token level, instead of 1,540 times at the component level. Fix ratios by nudging values, not by overriding components.

Days 10–12: the outlier hunt

Open Storybook next to the Figma library and walk the set. A handful of components will need judgment: charts (recharts palettes), illustrations, and any component with brand-embedded imagery. Budget three days; you will use two.

Days 13–14: proof and freeze

Rebuild one real screen from your product with the rethemed system, side by side with the old one. Ship the comparison to stakeholders, collect sign-off, tag a v1 of your tokens, and freeze. Anything after this is iteration, not setup. You just skipped a quarter of foundation work.