> This is such a funny line to read. I just can't help but imagine a brand like a small bulbasaur that evolves into big, strong venosaur which of course involves changing its shade of green.
It won't be just a single color either, but a whole palette for them. It's not practical to do a search/replace of color hexes across all designs and code, because it can depend on context which color is appropriate to use where, especially for accessibility.
It's also the norm I would say for startups and small companies to launch with minimal/good-enough branding (often with poor color contrast for the main brand colors because people love bright colors on white), and then they change/refine it later when it's more important.
Not saying you need design tokens at all stages, but brands do evolve.
Facebook updated their main brand blue and other colors in 2023, partly for accessibility: https://design.facebook.com/stories/redefining-facebooks-bra...
Wise also had a rebranding with accessibility in mind: https://the-brandidentity.com/interview/how-the-ragged-edge-...
Figma recently changed their colors too: https://www.figma.com/blog/figma-on-figma-evolving-our-visua...
It won't be just a single color either, but a whole palette for them. It's not practical to do a search/replace of color hexes across all designs and code, because it can depend on context which color is appropriate to use where, especially for accessibility.
It's also the norm I would say for startups and small companies to launch with minimal/good-enough branding (often with poor color contrast for the main brand colors because people love bright colors on white), and then they change/refine it later when it's more important.
Not saying you need design tokens at all stages, but brands do evolve.