Thank you, Jina and Val

Dear community,

In October 2025, we announced the first stable version of the Design Tokens specification. Industry-leading tools such as Figma, Penpot, Sketch, Tokens Studio, Style Dictionary, Terrazzo, and more support the spec, and every week or so we discover a new open source token tool that uses the spec as a foundation.

I have some news about two of the people who got us here: Jina Anne and Val Head are stepping back as co-chairs of the Design Tokens Community Group and becoming chairs emerita.

If you use the words “design tokens,” you have Jina to thank for them: she coined the term with Jon Levine when she was at Salesforce. In the group’s early days she worked with me, Danny Banks, and Garth Braithwaite on setting up the DTCG’s principles, its charter, and built the first version of our website. A lot of people found their way here through something Jina made, a talk she gave, or an event she organized!

Val came in to work on motion, and then volunteered to shape how we work. The multi-timezone-friendly meetings, how often we met, how we make decisions and keep the spec moving… doesn’t run itself! Val set much of it for us, and the group made a lot of progress as she facilitated the work.

Becoming chair emerita isn’t goodbye: Jina and Val stay part of this community, and we hope to keep hearing from them for a long time.

I’m staying on as chair. We’ve got more to share soon, a co-chair election and the return of our meetings (some of them will be public), but that’s for the next post. This one is just to say it plainly:

Jina, Val, thank you. For the name, the community building, and the foundation the rest of us get to build on.