Design kits

To design with Carbon you must have the most recent version of Sketch installed.

There are four Carbon themes, two light (White and Gray 10) and two dark (Gray 90 and Gray 100). Each theme lives in its own Sketch library. You can subscribe to as many libraries as you’d like.

Additional color collections live in the IBM Design Language library. Icons live in two different libraries separated by size.

Visit the Sketch library page and choose

Download Document

Open the file in Sketch. Navigate to

File → Save as Template

File → New file from Template

To get started with Carbon, familiarize yourself with the contents of each library.

At the top of your screen, navigate to

File → New file from Template

Symbols from both the IBM Design Language library and the Carbon library are accessible from any Sketch document. Navigate to

Insert → Symbols → Carbon Design System

IBM Design Language

Refer to the content below for a more detailed breakdown of the kit, or head to Sketch to begin designing.

The IBM 2x Grid is fundamental to everything we design. It is the geometric foundation of all the visual elements in the IBM Design Language, from typography to columns, boxes, icons, and illustrations. The grid provides structure and guidance for all creative decision-making.

All designs should start with the 2x Grid. Once you have saved the grid as a template, in Sketch navigate to File → New file from Template and select the

IBM Grid template

The grid layout feature controls and shows the 2x grid columns, gutters, and page margins. To create or edit the layout go to View → Canvas → Layout Settings….

To toggle seeing the 2x grid columns on an artboard go to View → Show layout or use the keyboard shortcut  

Control+L

To toggle seeing the mini unit grid go to View → Show grid or use the keyboard shortcut

Control+G

The layout settings change depending on which size screen you are designing for. See breakpoints.

This basic grid is not affected by any influencers and would simply react to the product’s breakpoints. Every layout and break points are included in the grid template on the page labeled “Basic grid”.

An influencer is a component that affects the content on the page. It can either appears on a page as the result of a user action or be part of your product’s page. These influencers effect the layout grid by scaling and resizing the columns and its content. You can find an assortment of examples of grids with an influences in the grid template file on the page labeled “Grid influencers”.

Slide-in panels influence the page layout grid; below are some of the specifications for panel combinations and how they impact the grid at all sizes.

*Since we are following the Carbon Design responsive guidelines, we referenced this table to determine our common breakpoint widths and respective gutter specs.

Let’s say we want to create a custom grid for a new design that uses the extra small panel (256px wide) on our x-large 1312px breakpoint. Applying the formula above, your calculations would look like this:

*If the grid influencer would cause the content view size to be smaller than 1056, then it would follow the next grid breakpoint setting the columns to 8. Which also avoids columns that are smaller than 32.

Carbon components, add-ons, and icons live in the design kit as Sketch symbols.

There are two kinds of symbols — library symbols and document symbols. Library symbols are available in any Sketch document, while document symbols are specific to the document in which they are found.

From the main menu select Insert → Symbols → Carbon Design System then select the desired symbol to add onto your page.

Carbon symbols are built to be flexible, and designers should not detach symbols from the library. Once a symbol is detached, you will no longer receive updates as they are released.

Symbols are organized by component; after selecting a component, you’ll see the variations and states of that component.

Text styles are based on typography rules defined by the IBM Design Language.

From the main menu select Insert → Text Styles → Carbon Design System to insert a Carbon type token text style.

Text styles within components are carefully considered. We do not recommend detaching the symbol to change default styles.

Carbon text styles in Sketch are organized similarly to symbols.

Layer styles are color selections for any shape in Sketch.

Color in Carbon is carefully considered, and we discourage custom layer styles.

The first layer is the theme selection (i.e., 01 White theme). The second layer is core Carbon color tokens (i.e., field-01) for the selected them. The interaction state tokens are nested in a third layer under “state.”

The Data visualization Sketch file includes basic and complex chart assets, along with usage guidance, theming guidance, palettes, and sample layouts. You’ll find even more guidance and assets in this file than on the site.

The Gatsby Sketch kit has all the components, patterns, and sample layouts that have been developed by teams within the IBM ecosystem. The Gatsby theme site includes the components, guidelines, and everything you need to create and contribute to Carbon sites.

For anyone interested in contributing to the Carbon Design System website, or making images for their own Pattern Asset Library (PAL), we follow a set of guidelines to ensure consistency across the content in the Gatsby ecosystem. The image production guidelines Sketch kit includes guidance, symbols and templates to help designers with every aspect of image creation and component specs.

These Carbon native mobile Sketch resources include everything you need to get your iOS or Android project underway. Install the grid template, be inspired by the patterns and examples, and get started with either the Light or Dark theme.

The IBM Accessibility kit includes checklists, bite-sized guidance, and handoff assets to make sure your designs are accessible for implementation.

This kit provides designers with a way to visualize concepts and test them out before committing to high-fidelity designs.

If you’re brand new to Sketch, they offer some great tutorials and help docs.

We make small adjustments and bug fixes to the kit on a regular basis. When we make a change to any of the libraries, you will be notified via a red pop-up in the top right corner of the Sketch window.

The updates are opt-in, however we recommend you keep your kit as up to date as possible. Once a change is accepted, you will not be able to revert to the previous version.

The Sketch libraries work on a continuous migration strategy. The v11 updates were made in the same libraries that were used in v10. If your Carbon Sketch libraries are up to date then they are using v11. If you do not wish to use v11 yet then do not accept the library update pushed on 31 March 2022.

Can’t find an answer to your question? Open up an issue on GitHub.