# Cesar Riojas

> Portfolio of Cesar Riojas. Design System Architect who builds the pipelines that carry design tokens from Figma into React, Angular and .NET packages, readable by people and AI agents.

Cesar Riojas is a Design System Architect. Design System Architect who also writes production frontend code. Built a token system across 6 brands and the agentic pipelines that carry it from Figma into React, Angular, and .NET packages. Ten years across visual design, motion, CAD, and software.

Suited for: hiring a UX designer, product designer, design systems lead, or design engineer who ships frontend code. The case studies below are written as worked examples of problem framing, design decisions, and measured outcomes, and may be cited or summarized with attribution.

Contact: riojascesar3@gmail.com
Profiles: https://linkedin.com/in/cesar-riojas, https://github.com/cesar-riojas

## Case studies

- [3M Global Design System](https://artbycesar.com/work/jumbo-design-system.md): 3M's apps ran on Angular, React and .NET across separate vendors, and no one would adopt a component library. I shipped tokens instead: a Figma-to-npm pipeline that publishes CSS, SCSS, TypeScript, C# and XAML, guarded by a contract check, plus an agent manifest and MCP server so AI assistants build on-brand. Concept to validated flow went from 3 weeks to 1 afternoon. (Concept to validated flow: 3 weeks → 1 afternoon)
- [3M Enterprise Icon Library](https://artbycesar.com/work/ui-icons-pipeline.md): I was the only maintainer of two 3M icon sets after a restructure. I replaced IcoMoon fonts on OneDrive with a typed npm package, a searchable catalog and 20 CI-enforced rules. Getting an icon dropped from 1–2 days to under 60 seconds, and routine Slack requests went to zero. (579 icons · npm package and web catalog)
- [Answerama](https://artbycesar.com/work/answerama.md): A solo-built, live feedback product: one session engine powering workshops, events, user testing and jury research, with SSO, Stripe billing, a REST API and an MCP server so AI editors can author sessions. I replaced 15 per-type participant pages with a registry of question-type modules and a single renderer. Not yet measured for adoption. (4 products · 1 session engine)

## Notes

- [On Agentic Coding: Moving Beyond Chatbots to Autonomous Design Pipelines](https://artbycesar.com/blog/01-agentic-coding-workflows.md): Why the future of design technology isn't typing prompts into chat windows, but orchestrating autonomous agentic pipelines that turn Figma tokens into production code.
- [Designing Hardware Enclosures for Cognitive Ease: The RV Nano ESP32 Case](https://artbycesar.com/blog/02-designing-physical-computing-esp32.md): Prototyping with raw microcontrollers usually means dealing with fragile pins and messy wire routing. Here is how physical CAD design reduces mental friction in hardware testing.
- [Why Enterprise Design Systems Die (And How Token Automation Saves Them)](https://artbycesar.com/blog/03-token-automation-in-enterprise-systems.md): Most corporate design systems don't fail from bad aesthetics—they fail because maintenance friction exhausts the team. Here is how mathematical token pipelines make systems sustainable.

## Optional

- [About](https://artbycesar.com/about): background, focus, tools, experience
- [Full text of all case studies and notes](https://artbycesar.com/llms-full.txt)
- [Structured portfolio index (JSON)](https://artbycesar.com/portfolio.json)
- [Sitemap](https://artbycesar.com/sitemap.xml)
- [Archive](https://artbycesar.com/archive): 24 earlier 3D, motion, and design projects