Why it matters
Without a system, every new page is hand-made and slightly different, and the site drifts into inconsistency that reads as sloppiness. With one, pages ship faster, look inevitable, and stay coherent no matter who builds them: the brand holds together at speed.
How it works
Design tokens (colour, type, spacing) feed components; components compose into patterns; patterns compose into pages. The system lives where the work happens (in the design tool and in code) so the published site and the design file stay the same thing.
What to do about it
You don't need a famous-company-sized system. Start with tokens and the ten components your site repeats; document the rules you'd otherwise re-argue. Grow it only when repetition demands it.
