People Nathan Curtis
NC
Nathan Curtis
Design systems consultant, author
Design systems pioneer and consultant at EightShapes
Why I Follow
Nathan literally wrote the book on design systems. His work at EightShapes established foundational thinking about component libraries, documentation patterns, and system governance.
Key Ideas
- Components as contracts - Defined APIs for UI building blocks
- Documentation as product - System docs need same rigor as code
- Federated governance - Central team + distributed contributors
- Tokens before components - Design decisions flow from primitives
When I Reference
- Starting or scaling a design system
- Component documentation strategies
- Team structure for design systems
- Naming conventions and versioning