Nathan Curtis
Design system consultant
Nathan wrote the book on modular design before "design systems" had a name. In the 20 years since, he's embedded in 100+ systems as leader, architect, designer, developer, and product owner—building the technical foundations and operational muscle that make systems durable. His writing has reached 2M+ readers. His tools turn component definitions into structured data for humans and machines. Previously he led EightShapes with Dan Brown (2006–2024).
If your system needs to deliver more value as your organization moves toward AI-driven product development, Nathan can help you get there.
Experience
20+
years in design systems
100+
design systems consulted
100+
conference talks and workshops
2
Clarity conference emcee (2018, 2022)
Led the program (9+ months as embedded leader or architect)
Morningstar
Verizon
Cisco
Marriott
Discovery
Credit Karma
Fidelity
Capital One
IDEXX
NetApp
Sun
Expedia
Advised or consulted on projects
Salesforce
Target
ServiceNow
REI
Chase
eBay
Yahoo
Wells Fargo
Liberty Mutual
Automattic
Nationwide
Dropbox
Atlassian
Ancestry
Hudl
Faire
Citi
FCS America
Paylocity
Software AG
Skills
Blog
Nathan has written about design systems since 2015, with over 2 million reads on Substack and Medium.
Greatest hits:
Naming Tokens in Design Systems
Terms, Types, and Taxonomy to Describe Visual Style
2020 · 304,000 reads
The Fallacy of Federated Design Systems
Avoid the damage and distress of glorifying the wrong model
2024 · 20,000 views
Space in Design Systems
From Basics to Expanded Concepts to Apply Space with Intent
2016 · 17,700 claps from 3,500 people
Book
Modular Web Design
2009
A design systems book before “design systems.” It elaborates on component architecture, how to build libraries and create component and pattern docs using tools of the day.
Tools
Nathan has been making and sharing useful design systems tools with community since 2006. Remember EightShapes Unify, the InDesign design docs and specs templates? How about those Adobe Illustrator keyboard shortcuts?
Recent tools include:
- Specs — Figma plugin
- Visual difference — Figma plugin
- Contrast grid — Web app
Appearances
Workshops
Design tokens & UI component architecture
Conceive, build and support a scalable architecture of configurable and composable design tokens and UI components for a durable library that stands the test of time.
Design system planning and process
Scope, plan and run processes to make features, deliver releases, tackle complex initiatives, and guide an organization through a major new generation of an entire library.
Recent talks
2026
- Components as Data for Humans and Machines — SmashingConf, Amsterdam, 2026
2025
- Spectacular Slots — Figma Schema, San Francisco, CA, 2025
2024
- Managing Design Systems — SmashingConf, Antwerp, Belgium, October 2024
- Managing Design Systems — SmashingConf, New York, NY, October 2024
- Managing Design Systems — Converge by ZeroHeight, Brighton, UK, October 2024
- Designing and Automating Component Specifications — Into Design Systems, Online, May 2024
2023
- How to make and share more flexible UI components — WebExpo, Prague, CZ, April 2023
2022
- Architecting subcomponents — Figma Schema, New York, NY, November 2022